Crack of Dawn Tuesday Open Thread: Did They or Didn’t They?
Posted: January 22, 2013 Filed under: open thread, the GOP, U.S. Politics | Tags: Frank Luntz, Republican obstructionism 16 Comments
Good Morning Early Birds!!
I’ll have a Tuesday Reads post up a little later on, but here’s something to get you started.
Remember when we learned about what some Republican leaders were doing on the night of President Obama’s Inauguration in 2009? They met at a dinner organized by Frank Luntz in which they planned how they would thwart Obama’s agenda by obstructing every single initiative he brought forward. Robert Draper revealed it in his book on the U.S. House of Representatives, Do Not Ask What Good We Do.
On the night of Barack Obama’s inauguration, Republican leaders met in a private dining room at an expensive Washington, D.C., steakhouse to plot their comeback. It was a mix of congressmen and senators with three others added to diversify the gathering of white men. Pollster Frank Luntz, right-wing journalist Fred Barnes, and former speaker (and soon-to-be former presidential candidate) Newt Gingrich. Gingrich gave the opening remarks and gave tactical advice throughout, including a suggestion for Republicans to target the tax problems of New York Democrat Charlie Rangel. At the end of the night, Gingrich proclaimed, “You will remember this day. You’ll remember this as the day the seeds of 2012 were sown.”
Fortunately, Gingrich was wrong about that. Now Jason Horowitz of the Washington Post reports that Luntz tried to get the old gang together again last night.
Luntz is apparently trying to get some of the band back together, according to the office of Sen. Ronald H. Johnson (R-Wis.). This year’s strategy session will not be held in one of the private salons of the Caucus Room, much to the chagrin of Cristina Cravedi, the restaurant’s special-events coordinator, who said all the attention to the last banquet “was good for business.” Luntz, along with former Mississippi governor Haley Barbour (R) and power lawyer Tom Boggs, is an investor in the Caucus Room.
On Sunday, a few minutes after chatting with Obama confidant David Axelrod at Cafe Milano, Luntz declined to confirm or deny this year’s dinner. But he claimed that the depiction of his dinner four years ago was inaccurate. “There was never a conversation about how to make Obama look bad; that was never part of it,” he said…
Texas Rep. Pete Sessions hinted that such a meeting might happen.
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Tex.), who attended the last dinner (“The first question was, ‘Are you going to accept the fate that falls your way? No!’ ”), said that he again planned to dine with Cantor and Jim Jordan, a conservative Ohio representative who was forced to apologize for lobbying colleagues to oppose House Speaker John A. Boehner’s debt plan. “There will be another one of those and it will be equally expressive,” he said of the dinner. (Asked whether he meant the Luntz dinner, he said, “I’m not going to spill those beans. I’m going to let you call Frank.”)
Others who attended last year’s dinner said they’d be meeting in smaller groups.
“We’ll find some Mexican restaurant somewhere,” said Coburn, who plans to discuss the debt limit with his friends, GOP Sens. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Richard Burr of North Carolina). Others are legally barred from breaking bread (“The crazy ethics rules will keep me from meeting with any members,” said Republican former senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who now heads up the Heritage Foundation. “We’ll just stay away for now.”
Did they or didn’t they? What is their plan this time? What enterprising reporter will get the lowdown on the meeting?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
grayslady
mablue2
JJ Lopez aka Minkoff Minx
peggysue22
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Our first openly gay officers attend last nights Commander and Chief Inaugural Ball. In the center is Gen. Tammy Smith, the first openly gay officer to achieve the rank of General.
Aaaah….Does the heart good to see this.
I second that emotion.
If the GOP/TP’s (secret plan) is to continue down it’s obstructionist path it will fail. It seems to me that if they didn’t get the message in the last election, then they’re incapable of governing and on their way to extinction.
I agree. They’re permanently in their delusional bubble. They just don’t get that most Americans find their philosophy detestable.
…and they have no clue how far out of touch they are with the American people in general.
This morning the GOP is whining that Obama didn’t do the sort of “outreach” that he could or should have done in his inauguration speech. WTF are they talking about??? The entire speech was outreach to the American people. To women, to the poor, to seniors, to the middle class, to immigrants, to L/G’s. What exactly did the folks in the GOP want from his speech? Did they expect him to use his inauguration speech to acknowledge their political agenda and to kiss their obstructionist ass? They can kiss our ass….And you’re correct BB, they are both delusional and detestable.
Quick question, why would Obama do a lot of “outreach” to d-bags who’ve been trying to cut him off at the knees for 4 years. I saw where Sen John McPalin said that and would laugh in his face if he said it to me.
But Mouse, Obama didn’t reach out to the suffering people who really matter: the 1%. They are truly hurting in ways people like us can’t even begin to understand. Living in basements, eating tuna fish out of cans while sitting at ironing boards, cashing in Daddy’s stocks to make ends meet, not entertaining, putting Americans out of work while sending millions of US jobs overseas. It’s hard to be rich. The 1% have a right to be highly offended by Obama’s snub. He is so insensitive to their needs.
Ralph…..Sen. McPalin has made a full time job of trying to remain relevant and whining is how he’s chosen to do it. Both McPalin and his dance partner, Sen. Lindsay Graham, have become so politically impotent they need to ahead and retire.
Beata…..I keep forgetting how tough they have it. It can take hours trying to find someone to remove the barnacles from the hull of the yacht. Life is hard!!!
The issues facing this nation cannot be stressed enough yet these obstructionists are more than willing to announce plans to stop any form of progress in areas that effect each and every citizen in another power play that will more than likely go on for 4 more years.
Bloated defense budgets, healthcare access, social safety nets, gun contol, corrupt financial institutions, tax reform, climate change, the right to privacy, education, debt relief, you name it and these fools will stand in the way challenging each and every move to block them.
After all the hoopla dies down, the parade watchers go home, the marching bands depart, the flags are refolded, the day after is what counts. As I see it this is just another replay of the last 4 years where a handful of misers and morons pledge among themselves to bar any means of common ground for the sake of power.
Meanwhile Israel will be voting another third term to their version of a Tea Pary candidate in Bibi. Where do we go from here?
So far as Bibi goes there is this to be somewhat thankful for, I guess.
Obama: ‘Israel Doesn’t Know What Its Own Best Interests Are’
I never could understand how continuing to build more and more settlements was ever “helpful” to moving toward a peace process.
But they have come to expect that whatever course they take they will always have the backing and support of the US and woe to those who call for a halt to these actions.
Both sides of that confilct have blood on their hands but the US keeps getting dragged in further and further into a possible conflagration that would be more than devastating.
Apparently it hasn’t dawned on them that, if they keep pulling more Palestinian land and people into their borders, Israel will become a minority Jewish country. At which time, either the Palestinians take over or they become an apartheid state, which I don’t think the world will allow anymore.