I got this directly from the White House New Media shop.
I watch too much cable, I admit. Day after day it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout — but I know that’s not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.
So what I may have said inartfully, let me say this way — since coming to office in January 2009, this White House and Congress have worked tirelessly to put our country back on the right path. Most importantly, to dig our way out of a huge recession and build an economy that makes America more competitive and our middle class more secure. Some are frustrated that the change we want hasn’t come fast enough for many Americans. That we all understand.
But in 17 months, we have seen Wall Street reform, historic health care reform, fair pay for women, a recovery act that pulled us back from a depression and got our economy moving again, record investments in clean energy that are creating jobs, student loan reforms so families can afford college, a weapons system canceled that the Pentagon didn’t want, reset our relationship with the world and negotiated a nuclear weapons treaty that gets us closer to a world without fear of these weapons, just to name a few. And at the end of this month, 90,000 troops will have left Iraq and our combat mission will come to an end.
Even so, we will continue to work each day on the promises and commitments that the President made traveling all over this country for two years and produce the change we know is possible.
In November, America will get to choose between going back to the failed policies that got us into this mess, or moving forward with the policies that are leading us out.
So we should all, me included, stop fighting each other and arguing about our differences on certain policies, and instead work together to make sure everyone knows what is at stake because we’ve come too far to turn back now.
As Greg Sargent notes, that’s an admission that the White House knows attacking the left is counterproductive. Gibbs said something that needed to be said, and now he’s walking it back. I don’t expect the White House to take a pounding from the left every day and never fight back. They have every right to point to what they’ve achieved and to what is at stake, and ask for a more fair assessment. But I’m glad he walked it back because, ultimately, fighting with the left’s opinion leaders in the lead-up to a midterm is a very bad idea. Now, nominate Elizabeth Warren and we can all kiss and make-up for a few news cycles.
Here is Atrios on Gibbs’ walk back:
So frustration at right wing assholes on cable news make you lash out at The Professional Left, who are busy trying to get teacher funding passed?
Tell me where Atrios is wrong?
Why are people perpetually trying to drive a wedge between me and Duncan. I’d rather eat glass than criticize my good friends in public. But, he’s not wrong, he’s just nitpicking. Gibbs said that about the cable news as an aside, which he clearly indicated by following it with “but I know that’s not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.”
In other words, he gave another example of how he gets frustrated, not a causal argument, as Duncan suggests.
Because I know you don’t consider him part of the unhinged left, and yet his view is different than yours. In fact, the reason why I posted that is because I share his views(and because he can articulate it better than I can). Besides, I think Atrios’ main point is that Gibbs(and most of the D.C. Democrats) should turn off their damn TV. Listening to right-wing bullshit all day is doing no one any good. And it skews their outlook.
I’m fairly certain that of all of them Gibbs actually cannot turn off his TV. He’s the White House Press Secretary, after all, and so it’s his job to watch/read/listen to all the garbage.
When you think about it, it’s a fairly shitty job that probably has long term psychological repercussions for anyone who isn’t a psycho already before taking the position. There are worse jobs to be sure, but as far as “elite” jobs go, damn it has to be fairly soul-killing to HAVE to watch all that news and commentary and bullshit day in and day out and to not be able to tune it out and ignore it for a while.
I always have had great respect for those at Media Matters for swifting through all the junk in right media. The same goes for WH and even the Daily Show researchers. It definitely is not good to watch that much pundit garbage on a daily basis.
Why does he have to watch it? It’s just the same bull crap day after day. Especially from people like Tweety.
Because even though it’s mostly the same crap day in and day out there come times when they roll out some re-wrapped and re-branded version of the same old crap and try to convince everyone it’s something new. And when that happens if Gibbs isn’t there to spin the WH’s response to the repackaged crap he isn’t doing his job. A lot of people think it’s the media’s job to point out that this week’s crap is the same as last week’s crap but that’s not their job at all in the 21st century – their job is to hype up this week’s crap as new and exciting because that’s the only way to draw eyeballs and keep those numbers up for their advertisers. So someone’s got to do it and that’s a job that falls on the WH Press secretary in a lot of ways.
Which points out silly it is to lash out against the “professional Left” – by which I assume he meant the Ed Shultzes and the Rachel Maddows and the Jane Hamshers and others who basically have the job of calling out crap themselves. Because that was who I’m fairly certain Gibbs was talking about – the left’s “equivalent” of the Noise Machine such as it is. Those are the folks that should be your allies in pushing back against the right-wing crap talking points spin, and sniping at them only makes your job harder.
Actually, you should read what Markos just put up. As it appears Gibbs was set off by something Dylan Ratigan said. Last I checked, Ratigan wasn’t part of the left in any fashion, unless that left includes JoeScar.
Kos is making too much linkage. Gibbs used that as an example of the kind of crap he wades through day after day and why he’s at a general level of pissiness towards people. But he specifically says that he knows that’s “not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about”.
That’s the quote that Kos has misread/misinterpreted. He’s using an example of a fringe belief from the right to illustrate what’s pissing him off about the left because he’s done enough damage and doesn’t want to call out the person who pissed him off earlier by quoting them directly. Which is probably the right move, though I think it would have been better if Gibbs had just called the individual out in the first place instead of using the “professional Left” label because if it were directed at an individual it could at least possibly open up a dialogue while aiming it at the “professional Left” is just hippie-punching.
This is a chronic problem with WH communications efforts. They’re afraid to name names or political factions ever, so they make up vague categories, usually designed to offend their base rather than the other side. To me, it’s amateurish more than anything else, potentiated by Obama’s built-in aversion to public confrontation.
Exactly. By trying to avoid confrontation they create more friction than if they just confronted folks head on and started a dialogue. You’d think that Obama of all people would understand the value of creating a dialogue rather than creating more friction. And by maligning a whole class of people under the generic moniker of “professional Left” you only piss people off.
If the WH is frustrated with Rachel Maddow or Ed Schultz or Glenn Greenwald or Jane Hamsher and they want to express that frustration they should actually use their names. Hell one of the people that I’ve seen suggested as the individual that had Gibbs boiling was James Carville – calling out Carville will get him applause and a round of drinks from most Democrats I know. If he’s frustrated with Carville he ain’t the only one. But by calling out the “professional Left” all he did was create a label that everyone can project themselves onto – hell even blog thread commenters who can’t possibly be in the group that Gibbs meant take offense to it because they assume he meant “liberal” and he’s engaging in hippie-punching. Casting it that wide has got to be more damaging than just saying “Ed Schultz is pissing me off”.
As much as some people might not like them, I am sure Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald wouldn’t mind being named publicly(not selfish reasons mind you). You are right about Carville. No one I know likes him. He’s still living off getting Clinton getting elected.
It has to be especially soul-destroying if you don’t have what it takes, for whatever reason, to effectively push back.
Heh, Warren.
He’s not going to nominate Warren until the Republicans win more seats so she can be defeated and Geithner’s toady can go in and gut the new department before it gets off the ground.
you radiate optimism.
Huff Po is saying the nom will be next week, so maybe I’ll get to be spectacularly wrong. I hope I get to be spectacularly wrong because Elizabeth Warren in that post is far more important than myself being right.
As for optimism I am proud not to be one. As we now know, pessimists generally are more introspective and possibly (not sure) more intelligent. Moreover, when you’re a pessimist you see the problems in issues more quickly and don’t hold out false hope as easily.
“…pessimists generally are more introspective and possibly (not sure) more intelligent. Moreover, when you’re a pessimist you see the problems in issues more quickly and don’t hold out false hope as easily.”
LOL! Wow. Just, wow.
self-fulfilling prophecies … myself, I’d rather turn difficult present states into better outcomes…
This isn’t a wow. This is actually based on scientific studies that recently came out.
::smiles and nods::
Ok.
I don’t think there’s any evidence that pessimists are more intelligent— but it’s been shown ad nauseum that depressed people (pretty much the same group) have more accurate social judgments (e.g. they don’t think they are any more popular than they actually are). Most people have an optimism bias that leads to inaccuracy.
better to be Pangloss?
I will say that it is this sort of comment that Gibbs et al must find exceptionally frustrating. Not only is there genuine criticism on policy which may be hard to take given that they probably all think that they are simply trying their darndest to get the best bills passed but there is a seemingly gleeful relentless criticism about motives which is just not called for at all. I imagine were I to work 16 hours a day every day trying to implement the most progressive policies that any US administration has ever done, in the face of unerring and unending obstruction from the republican party and in the face of a media whose iq barely gets into double digits, I might be prepared to accept criticism that this or that policy doesn’t go far enough but really would not be able to accept criticism of motives. this is a mirror image of what Obama said to republicans at that infamous retreat where he said that by calling him a marxist, socialist etc they had boxed themselves into a place where they could never agree with him (even on things they would otherwise agree on). Some on the professional left have so convinced themselves that Obama is a corporate whore, that he is owned by GS, that he is really a republican or some such thing that even if he does something progressive like nominating Warren they can’t bring themselves to feel good about it but have to invent some ridiculous story about a kabuki type move.
And Obama as I’ve said over and over and over again has given them no reason to doubt it.
Think back to RR. He dog whistled the hell out of things so that his hard right supporters always knew that even if he was constrained by the system in his heart of hearts, he was one of THEM (regardless of whether it was true or not).
But as Kevin Drum has observed, Obama remains a cypher. We don’t know if he really wanted to the Public Option or any of a hundred other things he had to give up in the name of passing bills. He never fought for them, he never says “look I AM of the left but am constrained.” Because of how fast Obama compromises, there is no evidence to say that he didn’t already hope for the bills that were passed, bills that we can concede are inadequate to the problem (even his supporters say these are just first steps).
When his first reaction is to jump in front of angry populists with pitchforks to defend Wall Street how can we ever believe that he’s anything but a center right business loving elite?
Ah, one more sentence.
…business loving elite? Especially since every move against them since then has largely been the result of leftist agitation and NOT administration pressure. When he’s gone left, it looks like he is being dragged there.
I knew Obama was not going to be our greatest ally because of his behavior in marginalizing the online left during the campaign, but I did not know that he would be our first obstacle to overcome.
If they were serious about Warren, they would appoint and nominate her. The job needs to be done now. A nomination would just die like Dawn Johnson’s or Gordon Liu’s in the Senate.
As has been mentioned before the D’s need a serious case of wake up before the voters harden their choices this fall or the game is over.
Are you prepared to take responsibility and apologize for a baseless and frivolous attack if events prove you wrong? Accountability applies at every level.
Gibbs said nothing that needed to be said. He pissed on the left and, quite predictably, it worked about as well as pissing into the wind.
If things keep going the way they are… I suspect “the professional left” shovingly located underneath passing buses will continue to grow.
meh. From where I sit, elements on the left haven’t turned off the golden shower since December 2008. They have no standing to complain about some blowback.
Re: Bowers:
So to the extent that Obama’s ratings have declined it COULD in fact be due largely to the left.
Here’s a different result:
Bowers points out the MoE in the Gallup was +– 2 and in PPP +– 9. That is, that PPP only interviewed 160 people to Gallup’s 14,000.
So I think the bias has to be toward Gallup on this one.
Whoops, should be 3,000.
Though I know you do not go along with OL–but while that’s a defensible (perhaps admirable) thing to do when it comes to Rosenberg and Sirota, that is not the case with Bowers.
And isn’t PPP known as a Democratic outfit?
They may not, but Gibbs’s statement was stupid and amateurish. The question remains: why is this WH so good at pissing off the left and so ineffectual at making a powerful case against the right? I’m completely unaware of any benefit that came from Gibbs’s statement, or any “necessity” that it served.
One of the things that Gibbs remarks did… the press people at today’s WH presser were asking if the WH wasn’t being too critical of ‘the professional left’?
Usually they ask if the WH is being too critical, or unfair, to the poor innocent right-wingers?
But… here is the plan for the midterm cycle:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/294860-3
The President punches the right and emphasizes what the choice is in this election. We are going forward, not back into the ditch!
I think that sometimes we just don’t pay attention to what the President is actually saying. He has done a number of these events, all of them on-point.
We should start hyping Community Health Centers. It looks like they could be very effective:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/08/community_health_centers.html
Students in Austin are certainly enthusiastic for ‘Made in America’:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010/08/10/education-economic-issue-our-time
There is more, of course, but I will stop there.
Some of my biggest beefs is that 2/3rd of the country thinks the stimulus did not help or was a waste, false by all economists, and TARP was Obama’s idea, when Bush&the GOP did it. I mean, who’s fault at messaging is that? Liberals or the WH Communication/Political operation? Also, where is the distinct message to counter 3 decades of govt is the problem brainwashing? Nowhere.
I keep harping on it but if Obama would just say, ” I wanted to do this, need to do this, but 41 Republican Senators will not let it up for a vote.” I mean, that is what is happening. Its the truth. Say it, scream it, over and over. Have your surrogates say it. Call out those obstructing by name, screw the vagueness or hollow pep talks like Geithner’s tone def op ed.
The “professional left” will still find something to bitch about, some with merit, some with out but the base will KNOW he is fighting for them and it kneecaps the complaints of those nit picking. They need something to lift their spirits and watered down bills or Wall Street bankster back to profits are not doing it. It is not completely fair but it is what it is. It is not fair the Benator and the Queens of Maine hold veto power after working our ass for years to take back the government either.
Liberals are already swallowing buckets and buckets of crap on Afghanistan. People need to be moved by emotion and even lost battles will keep the troops motivated. No one questions motives when you go to battles full guns a blaze but people do with when you cut deals and declare premature victories without explaining why or assessing specific blame of why others made you do the deal.
I know Obama’s hands are tied with this god awful undemocratic Senate and Blue Dog aholes but why doesnt America? House has passed over 300-400 bills that will not even get votes in the Senate? People took civics in high school and this is not what they vaguely remember how our govt is supposed to operate. It is just frustrating to see GOP rewarded for their party of no strategy and no coordinated counter to their tactics.
I know this is not Obama’s style (get the ham sandwich, instead of the pig) and I could be wrong.
I’m just a neophyte, but for the life of me I too cannot understand why I see and hear so little of this from Democrats. I can understand the wisdom of Obama not getting into a pissing match with every crazy in the GOP, but isn’t there a contingent of First Tier Dems who could; at least with some regularity? Oh, they might mention it on occasion, but with the unprecedented level of obstruction by the GOP, don’t you need as much unprecedented blow-back from Democrats to counteract it? Hell, at this point it seems the GOP knows that most of what they do or say is going to go largely uncontested on a macro scale in the media. The Democrats know they can’t depend on the media to call it like it is. So if they don’t do it themselves, who will?
The Dems make me think of the story (probably false) about the Red Coats marching in ranks in their bright uniforms while the revolutionaries took potshots from the sidelines and ultimately won the war. The Dems seem unable, sometimes, to come to terms with a new political landscape while the neo-fascists adapt instantly. As we see with the likes of Dodd, there seems to be a lot of pomposity involved.
The Dems make me think of the story (probably false) about the Red Coats marching in ranks in their bright uniforms while the revolutionaries took potshots from the sidelines and ultimately won the war.
Andrew Jackson’s crew down by New Orleans did the same thing to the British. Before the Revolutionary War, guerrilla tactics were frowned upon. But you couldn’t beat the British just by duking it out on the battlefield.
The President’s giving a press conference once in a while is a traditional tactic that still promises to be useful. Maybe Pres. Obama could try it while his aides are trying to adapt.
I don’t know about the screaming part, but you’re dead on about the WH’s failure to to just tell the political truth. Obama seems the think that learned opinions from economists should be enough to change minds. Somehow Obama seems to have forgotten how to connect policy with what ordinary, inattentive Americans want to hear. The truth is on his side, and yet this administration seems incapable of or unwilling to promote it. Obama’s failure to behave and speak so “the base will KNOW he is fighting for them” is the absolute core of the problem.
Yes there is a failure of communication. But the truth isn’t on Obama’s side in every case, either. Obama needs a different economic policy and different people on his economic team. Everything else is PR.
“[I]f Obama would just say, ” I wanted to do this, need to do this, but 41 Republican Senators will not let it up for a vote.” I mean, that is what is happening. Its the truth. Say it, scream it, over and over. Have your surrogates say it. Call out those obstructing by name, screw the vagueness or hollow pep talks like Geithner’s tone def op ed.
…
House has passed over 300-400 bills that will not even get votes in the Senate? …”
What you said is my vision for a generic Dem party ad. Someone saying “We wanted to do this…,” with an easy to read list of those 300-400 bills, scrolling in the background.
I’m glad Gibbs walked it back. I was ready to figure out how to embed a YouTube of “Oh Well, I Used To Love Him, But It’s All Over Now.” I can safely retreat to my age-related tech-y ignorance for now.
You mean this:
😉
I’m a flip-flopper. There are days when I want to tear my little remaining hair out in frustration with the Obama administration. Then a day later, I remember that they have to deal with 500+ clueless dipshits in Congress, a recalcitrant GOP, and a corporate media that is hostile to most everything the administration tries to do.
I was looking at Gibbs’s statement again. Look at the words he uses to sum up the administration’s dream for America: “competitive”. “middle class”. “secure”. Are these the dog whistles Obama voters are supposed to rally around? This is an agenda for timid accountants, not the people Obama inspired during the campaign. WTF happened to the real Obama?
I can only hope he begins to get back on political track by naming Warren as a start of a thorough house cleaning.
David,
Good comment. The “real Obama” is a creation of Robert Rubin and Goldman Sachs who bought him back in 2006. Look at a speech he gave at the Rubin-Goldman Sachs funded Hamilton Project in April of that year. Obama lauded “my friend Bob [Rubin]” and called for more outsourcing of jobs overseas, more NAFTA like “free trade” pacts, and cuts in entitlements. That is what he is calling for now too with his “budget deficit reduction commission.”
Note too that in his autobiographical writings, Obama never paid tribute to FDR or JFK, his hero was—Ronald Reagan. Note that Rahm and Obama have frozen progressives out of this administration: people like Howard Dean and now Elizabeth Warren.
Obama chose Gibbs and supports him. There is no way the presidential press secretary could have made this outrageous and inflammatory remarks without Obama’s blessing.
Here’s some background info on Gibbs with the underlying/base report coming from the New York Times.
I am indebted to poster Jezreel who posted this at Huffingtonpost today under an article about Gibbs:
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/16/us/2004-campaign-advertising-new-democratic-group-finances-republi
can-like-attack.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/10/gibbs-mockery-of-professi_n_677487.html
“The Professional Left” deserves every bit of Robert Gibbs’ smack down when he said:
“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”
I don’t recall anyone, anywhere saying that President Obama can’t be criticized. But look at who is doing the criticizing, more aptly described as trashing.
People like Arianna Huffington on her weekly round of TV gab fests can’t go a minute without finding fault. However, she can’t find the energy to talk about President’s Obama accomplishments.
These so-called progressives or “professional left” are undermining President Obama and using republican talking points to do it.
They are suffering from Obama Derangement Syndrome and use every opportunity they can and then some to trash him.
Prime example: Arianna Huffington is simply reverting to her republican roots which she has been doing for the past few months. During the Bush/Cheney years the web site Huffington Post criticized, deservedly, that corrupt administration. That continued until several months ago when the transition from attacking Bush to attacking Obama occurred. It was a gradual process that has now taken full bloom. This woman, who worked for Newt Gingrich, for God’s sake, reinvented herself as a liberal columnist. Now that she as milked her so-called liberalism for all that it is worth, being the opportunistic she is, she is morphing back to her true roots, even into right-wing wackiness. Look at all of the right-wing Obama haters who are not blogging on HP. Old readers are now being censored and banned, especially if you call HP on some of the crap they now allow from right-wingers.
There is hatred among the professional left that started during the run up to the election when Hillary Clinton and now President Obama Barack were batteling it out. They just about lost their minds when President Obama won the nomination. They are hanging onto this hatred and are still fighting Hillary’s lost election. Many of them quited down after the nomination, but some, who have a platform like Arianna Huffington, Jane Hamsher, Greenwald and others, never did. They are still fighting Hillary Clinton’s lost battle.
They are not interested in “steering” the President in the right direction. This not what they are after. Their goal is to help bring down President Obama to “prove” that Hillary Clinton or Dennis Kucinich should have been president. Just like the republicans and many in what passes for the media (not just Fox) they are ticked off that President Obama has accomplished something.
Do you ever hear these people talking about how the republicans have been obstructing the Democrats and the President since BEFORE he took office? Why is that?
And when many of these people posing as liberals or progressives do get around to mentioning that the President has done some good, they cannot, simply cannot talk about the President’s accomplishments without a QUALIFIER.
This from the Rachel Maddow 6/25 show on Obama’s record of accomplishments:
“Love this administration or hate it, this president is getting a lot done. The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, cheers to that.”
Let’s hear some cheering for once; no qualifiers.
Their goal is to help bring down President Obama to “prove” that Hillary Clinton or Dennis Kucinich should have been president.
Are you that stupid or do you just play one?
In a cult, it’s always the questioners and whistleblowers who are vilified, never the dubious, charismatic figure. Think about it…