"Administration officials said they saw the events (protests) beyond Washington as distractions ..." [View All]

[Better Believe It]

Less Drama in White House After Staff Changes
BY JACKIE CALMES
March 3, 2011

.... the White House mostly has sought to stay out of the fray in Madison, Wis., and other state capitals where Republican governors are battling public employee unions and Democratic lawmakers over collective bargaining rights. When West Wing officials discovered that the Democratic National Committee had mobilized Mr. Obama’s national network to support the protests, they angrily reined in the staff at the party headquarters.

Administration officials said they saw the events beyond Washington as distractions from the optimistic “win the future” message that Mr. Obama introduced in his State of the Union address, in which he exhorted the country to increase spending for some programs even as it cuts others so that America can “out-innovate and out-educate” its global rivals.

Read the full article at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/04/us/politics/04staff.html?_r=3