Axelrod and Obama inept messengers or truly inept?

Axelrod on Morning Joe:
Mika says to him something like,
"You call it political theater but sometimes political theater is needed to educate the American people on where people stand. I would have liked to see the Republicans have to stand up for tax cuts for the rich."

Axelrod's response:
He said something like,
"The American people don't need to be educated on this issue, they know that the Republicans wanted the tax cuts for the rich, we already had a vote in the senate and frankly it wasn't that good so the fact is we would not do any better in the next congress and this would push it to the next congress and the American people would wake up on Jan 1st..."

We know the rest of that talking point.

If Axelrod or Obama had said something like this:

"We had a vote in the House of Representatives to extend middle class tax cuts and the Majority won. The Republicans pretty much voted no. We had a vote in the Senate and the Majority won by a comfortable margin, but because the Minority is abusing the filibuster it is no longer enough to win with a majority."

"We even tried upping the amount of money that would retain the tax cuts to a MILLION dollars! Still not enough for the Republicans! The point is we WON this vote and the legislation would have passed if the Senate was not being hijacked by the minority. Clarence Thomas was confirmed with less votes than we had on this issue because the Democrats did not abuse the fillibuster."

"We are not going to give the Republicans two more years so that if they have a majority in 2012 they can make these irresponsible tax cuts permanent. No! In the next congress our first item of business is to put together a Democratic package and pass it either using reconciliation (which is exactly how George W. Bush forced through these tax cuts), or the Nuclear option —as the Republicans called it when they were the Majority— to make it harder to abuse the filibuster."

"So I apologize to the families that are going to suffer until we can get this done next session, but the Democratic party won the vote for your interests and the Republicans are playing games with the rules so that the party with the smaller amount of votes gets to stop the process."

"Talk to them over the next break and let them know that the filibuster is not there to abuse the process and wreck a presidency. Tell them that they are there to work on legislation that helps you, not their super rich friends. Tell the Republicans that if tax cuts for the wealthy—which have been in place for eight years— work to grow the economy, why are we in this ditch?"

"In closing I want to say thank you Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for trying to do the right thing, and to all the other groups out there fighting for the working people of America, thank you for keeping us on the right track and supporting us while we try to get the Republicans to come to the table as honest brokers, something that has so far been fruitless..."

"And finally to our Minority speakers, John and Mitch, I hope you have a nice Holiday. Maybe you will remember the people who have no money because of your votes, and come back ready to do your job."

That would be an education for the American people.

I heard him this morning on The Today Show and he did not have one word to attack the GOP for forcing them in this lousy deal. If anything, he blamed the Democratic senator saying the deal was immoral (not sure which one it was).

Even if they want to take the position that this is for the unemployed that they take this lousy deal, they still should be firing at the GOP at every single instance.

This illuminates a very critical aspect of this issue - the unwillingness to fight. As with the PO, the Obama folks swear they fought hard when in fact they did hardly any fighting.

Obama has made his bed.

is endemic in the Democratic Party. We are the party of

Axelrod thinks the public doesn't need to be educated about this?????? Is he NUTS?
The fact that so many average americans think that tax cuts for the rich are a GOOD idea shows just how clueless people are!
They belive the repub talking points that are repeated endlessly by the repubs and their TV/Radio mouthpieces, i.e. the rich create jobs with their tax cuts, rich people sign your paycheck so you owe it to them to support their tax breaks, etc.

My biggest regret about this compromise was that our party missed a prime opportunity to force R's to defend their position..and it was our big chance to hammer home to the entire country how full of bulls*** the repubs are!

If you spend your time trying to help other people, and they will not change their mind, it is fruitless.

The thing is, some have changed, they just have not found a way to express it, it is a silence issue with them.

And then a weakness issue, not an education issue, at that point.


And those that do express get put what some call outside, but eventually everyone that can be helped will be what is called outside, and those that think they are inside and do not listen or learn will be alone.


It is really easy to understand. If the mind and heart understands, and the only problem is silence or weakness that is not a problem, that can be watered and grown, since once the education occurs, then the direction facing is corrected, and it is only a matter of more strength.

They are inept at killing iron clad fillubuster by the repubs on every piece of legislation that will help the American people....tell me how Obama could overcome a party willing to abuse the fillubuster for political gain....are you saying another dem president could do it? No way unless maybe they point a gun at the repubs and literally threaten theirives but short if that no amount of fighting would change a damn thing....this always seems to get lost when people like to bash Obama over this tax deal. I don't Obama is inept....I think he is a realist and cares to fucking much for the little guy and their unemployment insurance. He's president and has a responsibility to these people, you and other liberals that are now attacking him don't have this responsibility.

Like the 99ers who have already lost their unemployment. They weren't even part of the discussion. Or how about the tax cuts get extended for 13 months just like the unemployment?

The reality is the bail out hoovered most of our money from the bottom to the top (read Griftopia by Matt Taibi). If the toxic assets were based on bogus mortgages why didn't the government pay every Americans' mortgage off? The banks would have still gotten our money but we would sure feel better about holiday gifts this year. Hmm I wonder what THAT would have done for the economy. Instead Goldman held a gun to AIG and we paid.

This is just them picking our bones clean. They scored us unemployment for 13 months while they continue to deficit spend our future money into the super rich pockets. Next they will put us on an austerity plan and tell us it is for our own good. I just hope they can clear the starving street people away from the gated communities. Maybe that can be their new jobs plan!

As for the "iron clad filibuster"

The filibuster can be changed. Either a Nuclear option exists or we were had during the Dem's minority... They can't have it both ways:

"Oh we can't filibuster this right wing court nominee because they will take away our filibuster so we better save our gun powder for a more important fight"

"Oh we can't pass any Democratic bills that the Republicans hate because they will filibuster us"

"Oh we can't change the filibuster, only Republicans can do that, cause thats what they told us! And they called it a scary name."

OH PLEASE! No offense meant but I have had enough.

Obama's personal philosophies guide his administration, and his personal philosophy seems to include a very large component of up front agreement with his opposition. I suspect in his personal life he has found this approach successful...he was never what the opposition expected.

It appears that he still uses this approach but that now it is his party that is being most surprised.

with an invoice attached - good stuff!!!:dem: