I watched a segment on CNN this morning that had historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and former CNN White House Bureau Chief Frank Sesno Jr. on as guests. The subject was a retrospective on Obama’s first two hundred days in office. The conversation level was uneven. There was some insightful commentary mixed in with a little mini-debate over whether or not Obama has had too much exposure on the teevee. They forgot to mention that the prior president could barely put two words together and spent a third of his time in hiding and/or on vacation.
What really struck me was the last question. Doris Kearns Goodwin was asked what Obama’s biggest accomplishment and biggest failing has been so far. Goodwin praised Obama’s ability to give people confidence and criticized him for taking a too hands-off approach to Congress. She said that he needed to get control of Congress and in particular that he needed to exert more leadership over his party. This made sense to me because the biggest obstacle Obama has faced in enacting his agenda has been moderate or ‘centrist’ Democrats who have held up and watered down his health care plan and who are resisting his cap and trade energy bill.
Frank Sesno Jr. agreed with Goodwin, basically reiterating her points. But then he said that Obama needed to get control of the ‘liberal wing’ of his party, as if the real problem he has faced has been from liberals and progressives who are pushing for policies that are further left than his own. I’m so used to this kind of anti-progressive bias from the media that I can’t say I was surprised to hear Sesno say this, but it take me aback for a moment to hear him say something so patently counterintuitive.
The truth is that the progressives are fighting for Obama’s agenda as he articulated it in the campaign. He said he wanted a cap and trade system. He said he wanted a public option for health care insurance. The progressives are not holding up his agenda, the Blue Dogs and ‘centrists’ are holding up his agenda. The recent push by the Progressive Caucus in the House to insist on a Public Option is really the first evidence in this Congress of the liberals in Congress being organized around any particular agenda. But that agenda is Obama’s expressed agenda. It isn’t an effort he needs to get under control.
Frank Sesno knows this, of course. But he is willing to argue that Obama will be more successful if he crushes his supporters in Congress and forces them to support his opponents.
Your liberal media….