It’s kind of fascinating to follow the discussion about the scheduling of the president’s appearance before a Joint Session of Congress on Twitter. Think about this. The president finally did something really aggressive and partisan by requesting an audience with Congress at the exact moment of an already-scheduled Republican debate. A lot of progressives cheered. ‘Yay, the president is really sticking it to the Republicans and playing hardball.’
So, what happened? Speaker Boehner made up some procedural and security-related excuses and asked that the president appear the next day, during the first NFL game of the season. The president can’t force Congress to give him an audience because it requires a Joint Resolution of both branches of Congress. So, he had to back down. It makes him look weak.
This is something I’ve tried to explain repeatedly over the last two years. Asking for something that can be easily denied does not make you look strong. It doesn’t advance any cause. It just makes you look helpless and ineffectual. This is a huge part of the Republicans’ strategy. The president forgot that here and led with his chin.
I’m glad that he’s going to speak to Congress and lay out a jobs program. My concern is that they’ll simply say ‘no’ and make him look weak and ineffectual again. But you have to show some fight, too. You have to create some contrast. And you have to make your opponents show their cards to the American people.
In any case, when your opponents have the power to thwart you, you have to pick your battles carefully. Trying to step on the Republicans’ debate was a straightforward dick move, and the GOP broke all historical precedent by showing massive disrespect to the office of the president in retaliation. I know there is a debate over whether Boehner agreed to the date before he disagreed with it, but you can chalk that up to Boehner being an incompetent idiot.
Isn’t is more likely that he chose that date because it is the very first date that congress is back in session?
They could just as easily say: “If this jobs problem is so important, why didn’t he make the speech the first day congress was back in session?”
From what I read, it sounds like Obama’s team thought they had the go ahead for the wednesday date from Boehner’s team, and then Boehner fucked with him again. This is Obama’s fault?
I think someone had to call Boehner to explain to him what the WH was doing because he’s retarded.
Or he’s just drunk all the time? The President can’t just appear and make the GOP look like fools when none of them show up? Would they dare not show up?
Just incompetent.
continually beats the other side’s ass it doesn’t say much for the other side.
Agreed.
Nothing like trying out a shiny new political message on NFL opening day. This will surely be warmly and massively received and appreciated…
Jesus, just move it back a week then, if Wednesday is no good.
I heard it will done during halftime. I don’t know if that’s true.
No chance. 20 minutes? Yeah right.
Does anyone in the White House even understand how stupid a halftime speech would be??? After sitting on your ass for 90 minutes watching the game, you think people are going to hang around 15-20 minutes more to watch a speech?? You might as well broadcast it exclusively on the WB.com Network.
Yes, that’s one reason the halftime speech idea is stupid. But another is that you can never be sure when halftime starts. The exact time of the kickoff varies by +– 5 minutes and the duration of the half varies by +– 10 minutes – and occasionally can be much longer if there is a major injury or a lot of replay challenges.
So the football fans will be skipping the speech in order to take care of personal business. And the non-football fans won’t know when the speech will be. Brilliant. I really hope that isn’t the plan.
And if Obama’s team wants to visually reinforce the idea of the Milquetoast-President-who-does-what-the-GOP-wants they can make sure the networks show video of Obama waiting in Congress for the half to end so that he can talk.
Of course, we know that Plouffe et al are campaign geniuses so this couldn’t happen – or if it does happen it’ll just be rope-a-dope or something. We know that they are geniuses because it’s not possible that in 2008 they just lucked out by being opposed by a stupid campaign manager (Mark Penn) in the primary and a political climate in the general that made it almost impossible for a Democrat to lose. No, they must be geniuses.
dumb. I can’t believe that.
“If Boehner continually backtracks on his promises to you, maybe you should keep that in mind in future talks. Just saying.”
~Hunter
“But – but – he played golf with me!”
I’m confused. During the debt ceiling battle, when Obama kept shifting rightward to keep up with the moving Republican goalposts, you lectured those of us who wanted him to draw a hard line on the issue that he simply had to cave to Republican demands. You even suggested that he came out better because of it.
Today, the president moves the date of a Congressional appearance and you’re worried that makes him look weak?
I’ll take the president’s side on this one. Boehner looks petulant and vindictive by publicly refusing the president’s request, despite having Okayed the date in private. But nobody will care about this squabble in a month. People will either remember the president’s speech because it signaled a change in the focus of government from deficits to jobs, which will be a net plus for Obama. Or they’ll forget this speech ever happened, along with everything else about it. Changing the date of a speech doesn’t show weakness. It’s the actual business of government that people care about in the end, not the theater.
Well, I’d rather the White House make the bad play on this irrelevant thing than on something more important. Still, it is an interesting lesson in power dynamics.
The Speaker of the House has always had the power to refuse a president’s request to address a joint session. It’s just that no speaker in history has ever been such a prick as to actually use that power.
No. We’ve been asking him to fight in situations where we could get more and look equally weak/strong, or where being defeated would have benefits that are the same or greater than the eventual actual outcome.
Besides even before this, it’s not like he doesn’t look helpless and ineffectual.
His caving doesn’t make Obama “look weak”.
He IS weak.
Boehner says “move the speech” and good little Barack says “YES SIR!”
He’s nothing but a joke.
For the President to address a joint session of Congress, he MUST be invited to do so by the leadership of both houses. Of course this has always been true. You know it and I do too. But 90% of America thinks he’s entitled to the podium anytime he wants it and they will be offended if it is denied him. They might even wonder why. After all, MSNBC could re-schedule their debate an hour later. We only have one President and we have a dozen or so hapless fools running in the Republican Clown Car.
So MOST people do not know this fact about the President needing to be invited. And the average media will not explain this to anyone because they ONLY do the “horserace” and this technicality does not qualify for “Horserace” politics. But every dipshit KNOWS he is being Dissed by being told “No.” This makes Controversy and maybe Big Ratings, too. He should ride this media ignorance as long as he can.
We’re living in a world of perception, not reality, Booman. He should play this out. Let people draw their own conclusions about why he’s the first (black) President to be refused the podium in the House.
I know, I know. It has nothing to do with his blackness or the Republican Debate or anything (of course.) And it certainly has nothing to do with logistics or anything Boner says.
But who looks like the asshole here to the average American? Boner does. And Cantor, with his “pay equal budget cuts to cover emergency disaster relief”
I’d like to see Harry Reid come out and say he just can’t understand why the House Republicans are being so un-accomodating toward our President by denying ANY request to address the nation for any reason. Debates can be rescheduled. But we only have ONE President.
So lets play a little politics with this. Should be interesting.
Failing to understand that the opposition has the mentality of middle school adolescent bullies, with real power, is the core problem. The WH needs to employ a psychologist who specializes in that mentality.
I don’t think these are ordinary times, and I don’t think that ordinary political logic will hold here. The President asked to speak on the first day that Congress got back. The American people will find that reasonable.
John Boehner made excuses about security. Americans will find that reasonable.
The President moved the date until the next day. Americans will find that reasonable.
Now all the President has to do is pre-empt the televising of NFL games. Ninety percent of the males in America would sit up, take notice, and say “This speech better be good.” Mishandled, that would come off as a dick move. An Obama speech that put an aggressively strong jobs program on the table (seemingly an impossible expectation these days) might make it worth their time.
What is likely to happen is a speech that no one watches.
All of the stuff about the Republican debate and stepping on it being a dick move and Boehner showing disrespect and Obama showing weakness—that’s inside baseball. The public doesn’t give a shit about the inside baseball of Washington.
Unless Obama can surprise and body slam the Village with a set of proposals that makes their eyes widen to saucers, when the speech happens is not going to make one whit of difference. A bold enough set of proposals will drive the NFL scores off Friday’s front page. And so will an appeal over the heads of Congress that resonates with where the public is.
I agree with this, too. It’s not gonna happen, though. Supposedly he’s coupling it with deficit reduction. Count me skeptical.
Another skeptic here. Bold and daring — going for the end zone — just isn’t part of Obama’s playbook. I anticipate a series of runs up the middle in order to position himself for yet another safe field goal attempt.
Though otoh we do have the recent hearsay testimony of Bill Press quoting a source who quoted Obama on his Martha Vineyard vacation as saying “I’ve been in office for three years and I’m tired of being pushed around. It’s time to fight.”
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Now the president has the power to pre-empt television schedules? This may be the first time a speaker has refused time to a president, but television networks have refused to cover speeches whenever it suited them to do so. They aren’t going to cancel NFL coverage for a political address.
And in either case, this was always going to be a speech that very few people watched.
That didn’t used to be the case. When Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, or Kennedy spoke, it pre-empted everything, and there was no debate about it. It was the President of the United States, and it was important.
Here we go again: post-mortems before anything has actually happened.
The fact that he agreed to Boehner’s postponement almost immediately, before the news cycle had even swallowed the original “stepping on the debate” meme, should tell you something. The audience for a cable tv Republican debate, on MSNBC no less, was always going to be miniscule. This turn of events puts it a bit more in the spotlight, with a little extra pressure on Perry and Romney, as a wounded Bachmann hovers beside them, pressuring them into agreeing with her Tea Party flavored lunacy. Having to bitch about Obama without knowing the content of his speech, while savaging each other as they jockey for position, is going to be quite entertaining.
If, as I suspect, the speech precedes the NFL game, Obama will likely have a larger audience than he might otherwise have had. He’s putting added pressure on himself by taking this route, indicating, I think, that he views this as a very big effing deal. Of course that won’t stop the blogosphere, and apparently many even here, from pronouncing the whole thing an epic fail before it even happens.
wondering about the dynamic here. how it played out means the r’s must debate preceding his speech. they’ll whine about his handling of the economy, then he can point out in his speech that they complain but in fact propose nothing more than cut taxes on the “job creators” and extract more from the poor and elderly and hurricane struck. and also that even on the wed after a holiday they still wanted a vacation day rather than address the problems of out of work usaians.
If you put a Ford Pinto engine in a Porsche, you will still get Pinto performance. Many of the President’s supporters keep looking for some change in behavior from the White House in relation to dealing with the Republicans. As I have stated many times in various posts the main mistake made by Barack Obama when he became President was his choice of political advisors.
Since I have been around a long time I have had the opportunity to observe the political machinations of Washington, especially within the hall of Congress. From my prospective Obama’s choice of Valerie Jarrett and David Plouffe as senior advisers has been a political disaster for the President.
Obama may feel very comfortable having these strong reliable friends at his side. However, such arrangements are terrible when the very people you need to call upon to provide guidance have neither the skill nor the expertise to navigate the shark infested waters of Congressional politics. Initially the President was counting on Rahm Emanuel as his White Houuse Chief of staff to help him interface with the House Of Representatives. Emanuel’s performance in this role was marginal and self-serving even during the session when the Democrats controlled the House. However, the President’s senior advisors are his primary backup people and it is their duty to keep the President at his best politically.
When Barack Obama took the oath of office his approval ratings were off the charts. Now two years and seven months later his negative approval rating is higher than his positive rating in respect to the public’s approval of the prospect of his second term. The drop in approval in respect to the President reflects directly on his image among those voters polled. However it reflects even more directly upon the President’s senior advisors and is an indirect evaluation of their performance and service to the President.
I personally believe that it is in Barack Obama’s nature to avoid confrontation like the plague. This is why in instance after instance when Barack has to deal with the House Republicans he winds up caving in to virtually all of their demands. Now if the President’s advisors were sharp and politically astute, they would realize that the “best defense is a great offense”, and thus would be constantly working to keep the House Republicans fighing fires within their own caucus. His advisors would also be strongly aware of the President’s personality traits (his tendency to cave under pressure) and would work their tails off to keep him out of situations where he could be subject to intense confrontational pressure in the first place. This has not happened with either Jarrett or Plouffe as his senior advisors.
Finally, both Jarrett and Plouffe missed a huge opportunity when they failed to exploit the battle going on within the Republican Party for control of the Party. There are THREE powerful factions within the Party fighting tooth and nail for control of the Party. The Republicans have been using Limbaugh to mask off this bloody battle from the public, this is why he is tasked to give the appearance of being the defacto leader of the Party. Currently all of the strategy and response seems to originate from Limbaugh’s broadcast studio. Once broadcast John Boehner then follows Limbaugh’s specific directions to the letter. Obama’s advisors should have acted to exert all possible clandestine influence upon the Republican internal struggle to inflame and magnify the intensity of the struggle in a very discrete manner behind closed doors. There are many many other signs of the intensity of this divisive struggle that is currently splintering the Republican Party. However which I won’t take the time to list them here.
Years ago a very popular book “The Man” which was about the first African American President was made into a movie starring James Earl Jones as the President. In the story the James Earl Jones character as Speaker of The House came to the presidency through a situation where both the President and the Vice President were killed in two separate accidents. The new President was supported and coached behind the scenes by a white separatist Senator from Mississippi. The Senator arranged for the new African American President to meet him alone in the White House garden in the early morning hours for a brief chat. At this meeting the “cracker” Senator told the new President that “personally I don’t like you at all boy, but I love my country much more than I dislike you. So in that respect I’m here to advise you what you have to do and say politically if you hope to stay in office”. The Senator went on to say, “You know that I am risking my career in this so you have to keep your mouth shut, but I know that we will both do it well for the country.” As the story progresses it becomes clear that the political skills of the old time southern politician becomes key to the preservation of the Presidency of the first African American. The Dixiecrat Senator accomplished this by acting as the President’s clandestine secret undercover advisor. Unfortunately Barack Obama does not have such a person in his Presidential life.
is what he can say that will be commensurate with the expectations around a speech before both houses.
Giving a speech that contains proposals with zero chance of adoption strikes me as a bad misread of the political environment. But I can’t think of anything that is going to matter that the GOP will agree with.
I can’t see how he wins with this speech.
He wins by doing it without them:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/09/obama-rolls-out-a-jobs-plan-that-doesnt-need-con
gress/244420/
This is terrible staff work by the White House. Put aside the date-changing episode, which is bad in itself. The September 7 debate will be the first time Perry and Romney square off. Everybody will be interested to see how that unfolds. It will almost certainly take up half the time on the Sunday-wrap shows. Obama’s jobs message will be competing to be heard over that drama.
Far better to make the jobs pitch, along with a sustained week-long campaign that begins September 12 or 13.
Boehner & the TEApublicans got epically PLAYED:
http://theobamadiary.com/2011/09/01/a-word-from-tally-5
If Obama wanted to be a fighter he’d have scheduled the address for Wednesday as planned with or without Congress. Maybe just the Senate, explaining that for the first time in history, the House refused his request to address them.
Nonetheless, I think Obama comes out, if not the winner, at least ahead on this. We can only hope he delivers a “skies the limit” jobs proposal and lets the Reps nuke a highly popular program. But first he’d have to go cold turkey off his addiction to Norquist economics.
Whats wrong with Sept 9, 10,
11, 12 or 13…? Obama would push the date back if he wanted. A lot of people will be in front of their televisions that night. Easy to catch some of the president live especially with the miracle of remote control. He may have more people tuning in this way. That means less people solely influenced by the Fox Spews corporate spin machine.People are desperate this year jobs are more important then football. Yes its true.
Everything Obama asks for can be easily denied. The Republican party exists as a perpetual denial machine. The date of a speech is no more or less easily denied than anything else. It’s all deniable. And belching up a bunch of faux macho bluster about strength and weakness around every single request made in Washington is, accordingly, an extraordinarily dumb waste of time.