You gotta love Susie Madrak. She’s not afraid of anyone. And what she told David Axelrod needed to be said. Ironically, I agree with both Susie and Axelrod on this subject. Susie’s correct that treating us like the town ho isn’t exactly motivating. Axelrod’s correct to say, ‘Hey, we feel like the town ho, too.”
From the White House’s perspective, there’s this big progressive media outlet known as the blogosphere that is just blasting them day in and day out, when they thought they might get a little support to combat the Mighty Right-Wing Wurlitzer.
But, from the blogosphere’s perspective, we’re not seeing much love either. And forget about respect.
I think both sides have acted stupidly and with a lack of foresight. The number one thing the White House should have done differently is to level with people about the constraints they are facing in Congress. They should have done some coordination, basically telling us where progress was blocked and whose minds needed to be changed. But, really, with the need to hold together a center-left coalition, keep the Pentagon and Intelligence Community in line, maintain confidence on Wall Street, and engage in massive spending to keep the economy afloat, there was never much chance that progressives would be ecstatic about the results. Some of our advice should have been heeded, but a lot of it just wasn’t politically possible.
On our side, though, we were far too quick to assign the worst motivations to the administration. We made ourselves their enemy and earned their enmity.
It’s a two-way failure, as the exchange between Madrak and Axelrod crystallized. I hope people listen to what Axelrod had to say. But I’m also glad that Madrak had the balls to get in Ax’s face.