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Moderator
It is taken as Gospel by the left that Obama did… at some point, at sometime, somehow, reach out, tried to work with the ‘radical’ Republicans in the early months of his administration.
Before I prove this to be a complete and total falsehood, let’s take a look at what ‘reaching across the aisle really looks like’
No Child Left Behind:
“Radical” John Boehner and Ted Kennedy work to pass a George Bush bill?The legislation was proposed by President George W. Bush on January 23, 2001. It was coauthored by Representatives John Boehner (R-OH), George Miller (D-CA), and Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Judd Gregg (R-NH). The United States House of Representatives passed the bill on May 23, 2001 (voting 384–45),[7] and the United States Senate passed it on June 14, 2001 (voting 91–8).[8] President Bush signed it into law on January 8, 2002.
Oh, it’s worse than that…
What about Obama?There's probably not a better example of Ted Kennedy's skills as a legislator than his work on No Child Left Behind, the law that Sen. Kennedy, Democratic Rep. George Miller, Republican Sen. Judd Gregg and GOP Rep. John Boehner worked on with the Bush administration in 2001.
Recall the context of those times. President Bush had won reelection after the nightmarish Florida recount and Supreme Court decision and many Democrats wanted nothing to do with him. The president nevertheless extended his right hand to Democrats, and one who took it was the biggest Democrat of all, Ted Kennedy. He came to dinner with the Bushes, watched a movie at the White House and generally started to work with Bush on reforming federal education law.
Throughout 2001, while Bush was getting hammered by many Democrats for pursuing tax cuts, Kennedy kept working on a center-out strategy with the White House and the Hill on education reform. Through painstaking negotiations, the foursome worked with Bush domestic advisers Margaret Spellings and Sandy Kress on the legislation.
What I loved was the political approach of that bill: It didn't start as conservatives trying to get liberals to sign on, or liberals trying to get conservatives to sign on. It instead started with both sides meeting in the middle and figuring out a way to produce a bill they both could support.
Worked out together, the bill passed both chambers by overwhelming totals… Bi-partisan totals. And that was George W Bush… judged by many on the left as the worse President ever. Yet he found a way to work with the ‘Liberal Lion of The Senate’ to get a bill passed into law.
Here is one man that could have helped Obama, and was willing to help. Never heard from Obama again…Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said this week that President Obama never made a sincere effort to reach out to him after the 2008 election.
McCain was once seen as a potential ally of Obama. But far from becoming a partner — as the left hoped for and the right feared — McCain has turned into one of Obama’s thorniest adversaries…
“This idea that this president or his people reached out to me is patently false,” he said. “To somehow allege that I didn’t somehow respond to their overtures, that’s patently false. That’s their narrative, and I understand their narrative, but it’s not substantiated by the facts.”
McCain pointed out that Obama invited him to the White House in 2009 to discuss immigration reform.
“I said, ‘I’d love to join you,’ and never heard from him,” McCain said…
Jay Cost goes on further:
There is more from Jay that is instructive, but let’s get back to the missed McCain opportunity:This undercuts the Democratic thesis of Republican intransigence, and points to an alternative explanation for the hyper-partisanship in Washington, D.C.
It starts with the recognition that Republican members of Congress, far from being the activists that liberals make them out to be, are in fact highly rational, concerned above all with reelection, which colors every decision they make.
To be sure, the bonds of partisanship complicate things. All else being equal, the fortunes of Republican members are positively correlated with a Republican president, and negatively correlated with a Democratic president. The opposite holds for Democrats. So, Republican members will need a good reason to vote with a Democratic president, and Democratic members of Congress will need a good reason to vote against him.
This means that it is incumbent upon the president to work hard to attract support from the other side, to overcome the force that partisanship exerts against such deals. Obama did not do this at all. Instead, his White House adopted a thoroughly passive nature when it came to bipartisanship, and legislative craftsmanship in general. So, it should come as no surprise that they wound up with bills that satisfied the powers-that-be in the Democratic caucus, but failed to attract Republican votes.
What did the White House seriously expect? Did they honestly think they could let David Obey write the stimulus, George Miller write the health care bill, Henry Waxman write cap and trade, and Barney Frank write financial reform--and Republican support would magically develop?
Knowing this president and his team of advisers, maybe so. But this was foolhardy.
But more than enough to get past the Senate Filibuster… McCain, Collins, Brown, Snowe… maybe more. But with Obama choosing not to ever find out, it never happened.(3) Targeted gettable votes. McCain’s experience with the White House is instructive. The Arizona senator is, at his core, a restless reformer who could have been won over on immigration reform, tax reform, spending reform, and so on. What’s more, there was a fairly substantial bloc of Senate Republicans in the previous Congress – mostly from the Midwest and West – who could have similarly worked with the president.
But the problem is that they did not get the attention they required. Again, the benefit of the doubt always swings in the direction of one’s own party. This means that the president would have had to do some serious courting of these members, and early on. They should have had input in how the bills were drafted, given vetoes over deal breaker provisions, political cover, concessions on other pieces of legislation, and so on.
Now of course, doing this would never have resulted in a majority of the GOP caucus supporting the president. Far from it. His worldview and their worldviews (or, better put, the worldview of their constituents) are just so at odds that common ground probably could never have been found. But he could have gotten some GOP support if he had worked hard for it.
What might have 2009 been like if Obama had shown the political skills that even George W Bush had in 2001? How many more bills might have passed? Debt reduction/limit? Tax reform? An ACA that was truly bi-partisan. A real DREAM Act?
So like so much about Obama, this meme of ‘reaching out’ is both self-serving and completely false.
No Child Left Behind Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ted Kennedy and No Child Left Behind | The Education Front Blog | dallasnews.com
Obama snubbed me, says McCain - TheHill.com
Morning Jay: The Myth of GOP Intransigence | The Weekly Standard
President
We got the first taste of this on the lobbying reform bill, when McCain, Lindsey Graham, and Obama worked on a bipartisan bill, only to have the Democratic leadership order Obama to drop out of the effort and get with the Democratic version. As Graham said, "Obama folded like a lawn chair."
President
Awesome, another thread where a bagger tries to make 5 from 2+2....
The false outrage on display is so righteous though, you almost want to take their argument seriously until you go away, look at the facts, and realize that they live in an invented reality.
My thesis is that teabaggers really can't be that stupid.
President Obama has cut taxes for 95% of the public, and despite being a liberal who won by 9 million votes or nearly 7% in what is known to be a highly divided electorate, he had a clear mandate to let the Bush Tax Cuts expire, and to further tax reform items like reducing corporate welfare and creating a millionaires and billionaires tax.
Consequently, he proposed streamlining government and cutting government waste. The public is with him on sensible defense cuts, but Republicans in Congress won't budge.
The federal government's workforce has been cut.
He pledged to end Iraq and he followed up on it. His opponent wanted to carry on, which would have increased the debt. Point Obama on that one.
Obama wanted a timetable for withdrawal and then a gradual withdrawal, but then he listened to his generals and decided to surge. This was the only thing that a few folks on the right cut him some slack. The rest thought he was being a pussy for not putting tens of thousands of more than what he allocated. What the John McCain's of the world wanted was a prolonged surge with 30 or 40 thousand more troops. That would have increased the debt.
Despite having to pay for things that the Bush administration put on the credit card, the rate of government spending has actually slowed in a way we haven't seen since the 50's.
He kept health care in America in private hands. Any Republican President would be running quite loudly on having been the first to get anything substantial done on health care since 1965.
Then Obama goes and saves capitalism and now they're sitting on much more loot than what they had before the crisis. Therefore, hating Obama means you must be hating on capitalism, too.
Obama has actually been more to the right than Reagan was on a number of key issues. When you tally up the score, we're looking at a President who, if he was a baseball player, would be considered the type of hitter who can hit successfully to all fields, which is pretty unique in an age of pull hitters.
President
I'd say Obama has been very bipartisan, if you consider the Blue Dogs a separate party. But he's never reached out to the GOP the way Bush reached out to Democrats.
As for how Obama has governed, to get anything passed he needs Blue Dogs, so he governs like a Blue Dog on legislative matters. On executive matters, he's been very left-wing, with all sorts of ultraliberal appointments.
Vice President
Who have done what to ruin your life?Originally Posted by adaher
Talk?
In my world, talk is cheap.
You should always have an informed opinion, so after I inform you, please feel free to express my opinion...USCitizen
Moderator
N
L
R
B
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A
How many times do we have to list them for you?
Vice President
I see what unfettered capitalism has done to the East Coast...I prefer some rules.
And just as unfettered business practices will make many people miserable and some people happy, so will taxes and regulations.
You should always have an informed opinion, so after I inform you, please feel free to express my opinion...USCitizen
Vice President
I just do not have your great trust in business to do the smart, safe, right, intelligent thing. The history of business proves that without demanding certain things from them, they will not do them. They have no morality, and are driven by profits, and in many cases an unhealthy greed for profits.
One can demand too much, in silly areas, sure. One can make it diffiicult to start a new business. The key is the middle road here. The far left tends to be unreasonable in their wishes, and the conservative right (far right) tends to be just as unreasonable.
My preferred manner of regulations is for congress to do it. Get rid of the EPA. It has too much power and is subject to be run by idiots. These guys are not elected and have no responsibility to americans. Congress has too much time to fuck off, and too much time to legislate. How many god damned laws do we need?
"Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay." Aldous Huxley.
President
Ah yes, rules, like "You can't do business at all". See, no environmental or labor problems!
Vice President
Yet, is that the reality, or conservative opinion? Perhaps we need to look at the regulations again, and see if some were stupid, not needed. I am sure there are some. Obama said as much recently. The repubs should push him on that, IF he wins in Nov. Perhaps something can get done in his second term, since the party of NO will not serve anything by retaining that stance. No use in it.
"Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay." Aldous Huxley.
Vice President
Let's observe...
Did Wall Street lobby for elimination of regulations? No.
Did Wall Street lobby for off-shoring? Yes.
Hmmm...I smell cheap labor.
You should always have an informed opinion, so after I inform you, please feel free to express my opinion...USCitizen
Moderator
Blue Doggy and USCitizen; you two cranks pollute every thread you post in with the same old shit... whither it has anything to do with the topic or not. Both of you should be outraged by your Lord and Master's coup last Friday... but you're not. And why would that be I wonder? The very same reason that every other leftist special interest has: it's more important to be a leftist than gay, or a minority or a feminist, or an environmentalist, or a America job first ist...
I'm making it official: neither of you two have anything to say that's worth listening to...
Vice President
The difference between us and you is we know both parties are bought and paid whilst you to continue to goose step with the Republican Party regardless of what it does.
You are one to talk about being one dimensional?
Wall Street GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's all you say, and it's obvious that capitalism is the best system in that it allows private ownership and profit.
Should this system allow money to equal legislation? Nope.
Of course you will retort with some black and white response as per usual.
At least be interesting once in a while.
You should always have an informed opinion, so after I inform you, please feel free to express my opinion...USCitizen
Vice President
Not my lord and master. No man is. The only ones that call him lord and master are the conservatives. Some of us think he is better than any republican running for his office.
I coiuld care about the gays. As long as you can't mistreat em. That is just good manners. And as long as you do not discriminate. That is good law. The gay marriage deal I used to be against, until I figured out it did not affect my own heterosexual marriage. You call that leftist. I call it common sense. Leave em alone and let them be just an unhappy as heterosexuals are. Not fair if they are denied unhappiness. Who in the hell do they think they are! Spread the pain around.
"Like every other good thing in this world, leisure and culture have to be paid for. Fortunately, however, it is not the leisured and the cultured who have to pay." Aldous Huxley.
Moderator
Suuurrrrre... right, whatever you say Blue Doggy. You've always got plenty of outrage for me, but never any for Obama. Obama just gave away a million US jobs and not so much as a yawn out of you. In fact rather than condemn Obama you just wanted to toke up:
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