The Media Are (Finally) Getting More Real on PBO
By SusanUnPC on February 12, 2009 at 1:50 PM in American Consumers, Banking Institutions, CNN, Current Affairs, Economic Stimulus, Economy, Media Handling of Story, stimulus tax package
Of course, the moment PBO went into his campaign rally “schtick,” the media were like cub scouts who’ve been hiking all day, drinking the Kool-Aid and chowin’ down on the meal, no matter how not-very-meaty it was. But now that the focii are back on Congress’s negotiations, Geithner is testifying, the bank presidents are in the hot seat, it’s all getting VERY real again!
Anyway, I watched a good panel discussion last night on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 (oh, and I swear to god if I hear AC say “keepin’ them honest” one more time, I’m gonna kick him in the ass from here to the moon) –BUT the important thing is that these reporters and analysts were actually (astonishment!) speaking the truth about what they’re hearing.
THE KEY ELEMENT in this panel discussion is all of the doubt expressed and that “Nobody has the answer,” says Gergen. The panel notes that a lot of people on “the Hilll” are very “skeptical” about this bill being a success, and Obama has “real problems,” a tough “row to hoe,” and on and on. Candy Crowley’s remark about people having a “nauseous feeling all the time” … WOW! Nobody, it sounds, is sure that this plan is really the right thing to do (including every reader here at No Quarter, that’s for sure!). Gergen’s comment, “ I think he’s in great shape with the American people. I think he may be in deeper economic trouble.” And the American people — the panelists and we all know — will turn on Obama the instant it becomes clear that this hastily-tossed-together quick-fix of a bill is NOT doing the job, as I fear it won’t.
The transcript is below:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look around us. Look at this construction site right where we’re standing. We’re surrounded by unmet needs and unfinished business in our schools and our roads, in the systems we employ to treat the sick, in the energy we use to power our homes.
And that’s the core of my plan, putting people to work doing the work that America needs done.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: President Obama today at a highway construction site in Northern Virginia — Mr. Obama saying the economic stimulus plan would create or save 100,000 jobs in the commonwealth.
Let’s talk about the plan and the politics with senior political analyst David Gergen and correspondents Joe Johns and Candy Crowley.
David, it’s a done deal. What’s the lesson in this moving forward for — for President Obama?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: The lesson is, it’s going to be very hard to get things through Congress. There’s going to be no rubber-stamp up there. These three Republicans had the whip hand on this negotiation. And I think that’s why the bill wound up much closer to the Senate bill than the House original version, and why so many House Democrats are unhappy.
But there’s also a positive lesson, I think, here, Anderson. And that is that, for many Americans, there’s going to be a lot more infrastructure bill — in this — in this bill than there was in the original bill. Some of the bad things have been scrubbed out. There has been a process here of real scrutiny of it.
And I — I think that’s a healthy thing in a democracy. I think many — many — I think this bill is going to withstand scrutiny, despite its many flaws and despite the big, big question of whether it’s large enough. Many Americans are going to like this bill better than what they first saw.
COOPER: Joe, I guess there are some who would say, you know, if — if liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans both are upset by it, then this is sort of maybe somewhere in the middle, and maybe that’s not too bad a thing.
JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, that’s about right, because, when you think of the Republicans, on the one hand, there are a lot of people who are saying, Barack Obama said he wanted our vote, but, on the other hand, he really didn’t take the extra step of sort of cutting and pasting the language that we wanted inside the bill, so conservative Republicans upset.
Then, a bunch of Democrats, even some in the Black Caucus, people who are very proud about the fact that Barack Obama is now president of the United States, are complaining because certain things came out, you know, the stuff for education and so on. So, that’s about right.
When you get people on both sides griping, and you still have enough votes to pass a bill both in the Senate and the House, get it to the president’s desk, a lot of people will say, perhaps that’s a good sign.
COOPER: And, Candy, it’s fascinating to see the president out selling this thing and acknowledging, I think it was today, essentially, look, this is my problem now. If — if this doesn’t work, four years from now, I will be voted out of office.
It’s also interesting to see him on the side of a highway in Virginia, you know, kind of rolling up his sleeves and — and being the face of this.
CANDY CROWLEY, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure.
I mean, look, he is the face of this. And there’s a lot of things happening when a president has a town hall meeting or a photo opportunity, whatever you want to call it. And one of the things is that he’s out there with his power base, and that is the American people. That’s where his political capital is. And he’s out there going: I get you. I understand you. Meanwhile, these people are back in Washington, you know, and I’m just pushing and pushing them.
So, it sort of attaches him to the American people: I’m on your side.
So, there was a lot of that in his trip to Indiana and in his trip to Florida, now in his trip to Virginia, just kind of reinforcing: You and I are in this together, and I’m going to move old-time Washington and get things done.
COOPER: David, can the president keep that up, though, being the one constantly out there every day, you know, whether it’s this or — or the — the Geithner package or whatever else is coming down the pike?
GERGEN: Absolutely not.
And I think that he’s in danger of being overexposed. He’s certainly in danger of being the only person who seems to carry the ball publicly for them. And, Anderson, 24 hours later, after the financial bailout package announcement yesterday, I think, as the dust is settling a little bit, it appears that the administration is in more trouble on this than even we thought last night.
There are many people on Capitol Hill now who are skeptical about the contents of the package. They’re not sure they trust what they’re hearing from the Treasury Department. There are many people on Wall Street and well beyond who think that this initial effort may put his presidency at some peril.
So, even as he’s won his victory tonight — and he is winning a big victory on the stimulus bill — this financial bailout, which is much, much bigger, after all — we have got a — you know, it’s almost three times bigger than — than the stimulus package — he’s got some real problems there, and he’s going to have to scramble now to pull that out.
COOPER: Joe, are you hearing that as well?
JOHNS: Yes, absolutely. This — this president is going to have a tough row to hoe.
And when you think about the other things coming down the pike, he has a lot of tough choices to make yet. And — but it still all depends in some ways on what happens with the stimulus, what happens with the Troubled Assets Relief fund.
Some people say, you look down the road, perhaps the economy starts turning the corner late this year, early next year, Barack Obama will be able to go out and say, hey, it was because of what we did, even if the stimulus really hasn’t even started making its way into the economy yet.
And — and, for that, of course, some congressional Republicans might pay. But, sure, Barack Obama’s got a lot of stuff on his plate here. And he has — he has taken some hits on this thing.
COOPER: Candy, I mean, he’s facing something probably no president in our lifetime has faced, I mean, the challenges, just the economic challenges alone.
Are the mistakes they have made just kind of the growing pains of — of adjustment or something more fundamental? I mean, how much trouble are they in?
CROWLEY: I don’t — look, I don’t think at this point they’re in that much trouble.
He got pretty much what he needed. Honestly, if a president that came in with the kind of popular vote margin, an electoral margin that he had, couldn’t get what he wanted right out of the box, that’s an administration in trouble. This is how the balance of power works.
I do think that David and Joe are right, that the whole financial bailout package will be tougher. But part of that, yes, is that — that Timothy Geithner, the treasury secretary, came out with a less- than-reassuring appearance, shall we say, yesterday in the news conference and later on the Hill, but also because, you know, a trillion-and-a-half dollars begins to sound like real money, and because there is this — as one lawmaker I talked to today called it, he said, I just have this nauseous feeling all the time that no one is exactly sure how to go about this. And I think it’s true, because it’s such a big problem, no one really has ever dealt with it before. So, part of what President Obama is dealing with is that he’s basically saying: Trust us. We will do it right.
And, if — if they aren’t doing it right, the price is pretty darned high, not just bottom line, but also to the country and the economy at large.
COOPER: Well, David, economists are still arguing about the Great Depression and what really brought us out of that. I mean, so, the idea that anyone really knows exactly what steps to take, I mean, that’s just — there’s no way anyone does.
GERGEN: That’s exactly right, Anderson.
I think one thing — one of the things that distinguishes this recession from almost any one that I have seen in the last 40 years has been the fact that nobody knows how to get out of it. Nobody has the answers.
But, when you’re elected president, you know, they expect you to have the answers. When you put your treasury secretary out with a plan, they expect him to have the answers in the plan.
And if — and if people begin to feel that this isn’t quite working – I don’t think Barack Obama is in any political trouble right now. I think he’s in great shape with the American people. I think he may be in deeper economic trouble.
COOPER: Well, if he’s in deeper economic trouble, then we all are in deeper economic trouble.
David, Candy, Joe, we’re going to leave it there. Thanks.
– From AC360, February 11, 2009, Link to Full Transcript.
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