The nearly incomprehensible decision by the Democratic leadership to avoid a vote on the extension of the Bush tax cuts is the latest problem for Democratic incumbents. On Fox News Sunday, Juan Williams tried out a novel defense: Nancy Pelosi couldn’t take a vote, because the mean Republicans would twist the minds of voters and get them all confused. The discussion went as follows:
HUME: So this poor little Speaker of the House presiding over this massive majority has the vote she says to win on this issue and send her members home, having voted to stave off the tax cuts for nearly everybody, and she was afraid of what the minority Republicans were going to say about it? And you seriously — do you believe that?
WILLIAMS: Did you just say stave off tax cuts for everyone?
HUME: Tax increases. I’m sorry.
WILLIAMS: That’s a distortion.
HUME: Tax increases.
KRISTOL: The fact is — I was with four Republican Senate candidates this week by chance in New York at a little event. And they said — I asked, “How is the tax debate going?”
And they said, look, until now, it’s been the traditional Democratic/Republican debate. Democrats say they want to cut taxes for the middle class. Republicans say, you don’t want to raise any taxes in a recession. And it was probably kind of a wash politically.
All of that — now, maybe they’re wrong, but all of them were extremely happy. This was the night — the day after Nancy Pelosi adjourned the House without allowing a vote — without allowing a vote on the coming tax increase. Every Republican challenger can now say you have been in charge for two years, you could have dealt with this, you could have cut whatever deals you needed to cut to do as Juan said and bring over some of those moderate Republicans. You could have insisted on an up-or- down vote. You didn’t.
Every American now faces a tax increase in January thanks to this Democratic Congress doing nothing.
LIASSON: … Well, the problem is that they might very well get some kind of a deal, a temporary extension or whatever, in the lame duck.
The problem is that every Democrat now has to go home now without saying, “I voted to continue lower taxes for the middle class.” I do think that the White House and the Democrats overestimated how strong their argument was going to be and how easy it was going to be to keep all the Democrats on one page on this. I mean, I think if they had all their Democrats, they would have brought it up for a vote.
Now, their argument is Republicans are holding the middle class tax cut hostage to continuing the tax cuts for the rich. The problem with that is, if you don’t have a vote and kind of show them holding it hostage, how do you know that they really are?
Yeah, that’s a problem. So the Obama-Pelosi-Reid brain trust has saddled incumbent Democrats with more baggage. OK, but after the deluge that’s about to hit, won’t the Obami have a post-election epiphany, as Bill Clinton did? Don’t be too certain.
Mara Liasson says the White House doesn’t believe in all that moving to the center hooey, but reality is reality: “Look, I think that I can tell you on very good authority that at the White House, they totally reject the idea that he would adopt the Clinton model and move to the center. Now, that being said, everything is going to change in November.” Bill Kristol thinks some personnel changes may help: “I think the president has cleverly and sort of carefully gotten rid of the incredibly arrogant, smart alecks who dominated the White House in the first term — Rahm Emanuel, Larry Summers, Pete Orszag. They knew best. They were so clever. Never let a crisis go to waste. We can jam stuff through. No problem. This president can carry anything off. That is not Pete Rouse’s attitude. Pete Rouse worked for Tom Daschle for 19 years. He cut a lot of deals with Congress.”
But it really is up to Obama — he’s not one for cutting deals, and he certainly isn’t one to admit error. His liberal extremism has imperiled his presidency and sunk his party. His irritation with all but his most fervent supporters has left him alienated from voters and even from his party’s base. The question remains: is he willing and able to shift course? After running on a change theme and trying to radically change America, he is the one who will have to change. Unless, of course, one term is plenty for him.
Abandon ship Jennifer! Tomorrow you need to distance you and commentary from McCain to save face.
Jennifer: I agree w/your assessment 100%.
I wonder, though, if McCain were ahead, would his charge be solely to show up and not fall flat? We’d hear terms like “coasting” or “just getting by.”
Come on, pundit class: challenge dumb conventional wisdom.
Gosh:
The Obama campaign is pushing HARD “the One” was disrespected b/c McCain said “that one” pointing to Obama voting for Cheney’s energy bill….
Puh-leez !!!!
Yes, Obama debating John Kerry or Al Gore. Oh, give us Palin-Biden II.
Had it been a fight it would have been stopped about 25 minutes into the debate. Are you truly so unable to de-center yourself that you couldn’t see that?
Palin in 2012 !! (Please, someone, prevent her from running for the Senate)
If the audience questions selected were the best of the reported millions submitted…I’d hate to read the rejected ones.
I agree with Jennifer, it was a major snore fest.
It was also irritating that Brokaw kept complaining about Obama and McCain running over time, yet did nothing to enforce time limits.
I think he made two big gaffes. “I have never supported Fannie Mae” and his basically leaving Israel to its own fate if Iran attacks (while at the same time itching to go to war in Pakistan and Darfur).
I am reminded of Kerry in 2004. At the time, most people thought he “won” the foreign policy debate, but in the fullness of time his “global test” statement was a mortal wound. If McCain plays it right, so too could be the case here.
EnerGeo,
No chance… you must have neocon goggles on.
Hank, you clearly don’t even know what the term “neocon” means.
It’s a straight analysis. Obama opened two doors, let’s see if McCain can walk through either or both.
This same focus group that said that McCain performed better on economic issues then said that Obama performed better on healthcare. Umm, I don’t know if folks know, but, the two issues aren’t exactly separate.
Both of the candidates came across as boring and dull. When McCain spoke I wanted to ram my head in to a wall to stop the boredom. When Obama spoke, I just replayed the first debate because he repeated every talking point he made there. I guess if a winner needed to be chosen, I’d have to say Terry Shiry, the Navy guy who got both men to agree on honoring his service. Bah.
Being that this debate was billed as a town hall, I would have expected free flowing questions from the people in the audience. This was no town hall. Tom Brokaw decided all the questions and there was minimal audience interaction. Where there debate further failed, was that there was nothing new or interesting covered. It stuck to the same old debate talking points. Tom made Gwen Ifill look good.
Gwen Ifill was good
He let Obama off the hook on foreign policy. Krauthammer even went so far as to say that Obama won the foreign policy portion of the debate.
Krauthammer is a brilliant man, but he has been reliably wrong politically this election season.
Boring is good for Obama. He reassures America by seeming regular, not preachy.
I have to say, it’s a poor choice when “our” guy rants against the Defense Contractors. That means for a bunch of companies, they’re screwed no matter who gets in. I know business is not the pleasure of most people who blog, but Boeing is in the middle of a strike. The consequence is that they downstream suppliers are being savaged in the market (as is Boeing). And Boeing’s customer’s are having to re-adjust, too.
So let’s chop away business, and get “make work” programs set up to “employee” the people at government expense.
Obama says this is the “final verdict” on Bush’s eight years, but seems to imply that it may be the final verdict on capitalism itself. We’ve got to create a new system.
Maybe he and Ayers see eye to eye on things.
There are serious people who think we may tip into a depression. Let’s see: Tax increases and protectionism would do quite nicely.
Then we have bright bulbs like Robert Borosage who think a depression would be just dandy since it would strength the connect between “the People” and “the Government”
I’m beyond words that we have a gentlemanly candidate who really just can’t seem to articulate anything wrong with a Command Economy, Comand HealthCare. What shall we name our new healthcare system….how about FrediMed.
I guess, when what’s left of the middle class figures out that the Ruling Party is going to have to make decisions balancing monies between the “right to a home” and the “right to health care”, it will become clear. Too late, but very clear. That’s when the rationing begins.
Dear G_d, please bless this country with good leaders.
It was a bore, but a frightening bore. Obama, since his poor performance with Rick Warren, seems to be more comfortable, more relaxed, more glib. McCain is not coming across as well as he did in the first “debate”, which is curious because he is supposed to be at his best when he can move around. Whath appened to his snappy responses, and brief explanations? There was no sign of the fearless Fighter Pilot last night not a hint of his reputed terrible temper.
It is apparent that Obama has been getting intensive coaching, and is enough of an actor that he’s getting better at delivering his lines. Would somebody please get Rudy Guiliani to work with John on his performances? He talks straight and with sharp humor.
This so-called debate format is a travesty. It is a just a ding-dong bicker, plowing over the same ground, changing no minds,, reinforcing mind sets, leaving no room for taking off the gloves and going after an opponent as a chronic liar, tool of a crooked political machine, attacker of freedom of speech, and committed socialist in centrist camouflage.
The uncommitted voters and the “middle americans” that Palin reaches, and are so essential to defeating Obama, if they watch these farces at all, are even more bored and confused than those of us who feel we are obliged to. They represent everything they dislike about politics and politicians. It is going to take a lot more raw rubbing of their resentments to win their “gut feeling” vote next month, and McCain had better get his groove soon.