Rahm Emanuel: Bipartisanship Is Dead

[babylonsister]

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/bipartisanship/rahm-emanuel-okay-bipartisanship-is-dead/

Rahm Emanuel: Bipartisanship Is Dead


This quote from Rahm Emanuel is, I believe, the starkest admission yet from the White House that liberals may have been right to warn that Republicans had no intention of reaching any kind of genuine compromise with Dems on health care reform:

“The Republican leadership,” Mr. Emanuel said, “has made a strategic decision that defeating President Obama’s health care proposal is more important for their political goals than solving the health insurance problems that Americans face every day.”

This could — could — be a turning point in the debate. Up until now, the White House had been content to let its outside allies make this case while maintaining the posture that President Obama still held out hope for bipartisan agreement.

Indeed, liberals will respond by saying, “no kidding.” They’ve been arguing that the GOP leadership’s only goal was to kill health care reform at all costs since Jim DeMint said health care failure would be Obama’s “Waterloo.”

That said, it’s too early to conclude that the White House is now serious about going it alone. It could just be a tough-talking bluff at a time when more liberal opinion makers are questioning whether Obama and Dem leaders are getting rolled because they’re refusing to acknowledge the ever-more-obvious reality about the Republican opposition’s intentions.

But such a stark assertion, coming from one of the President’s most important advisers, seems significant: It’s tantamount to saying outright that bipartisanship is dead. After all, if the White House believes that GOP leaders have made a strategic decision that icing health care reform is their primary goal, why continue striving for bipartisan compromise? It’ll be interesting to see where this goes from here. Driving the day, as they say…

[daa]

1. I really don't think that is Emanuel or Obama talkingor even

that dufus Reid, but my new hero Congressman Weiner.

[rurallib]

9. Anthony Weiner! Thank you!

Worth a thread of it's own!

[Cassandra]

21. The best thing Weiner could do for us...

was not running for mayor. I was disappointed at his announcement but now I'm glad he decided to stay in the House.

[invictus]

2. Bipartisanship was always just an excuse for Corporate Democrats to do their masters' biddings. n/t

[xultar]

3. When did Jim DeMint say health care failure would be Obama’s “Waterloo.”

That shit was months ago. Obama should have taken the effing hint then and we would have had shit passed by fucking now.

Obama was fucking naive and he ended up getting spanked. The GOP told Obama one thing and did another right in front of his fucking face and he still thought they were playing ball.

I'm glad Obama woke up.
I guess better late than never.

[Raster]

4. I like you!

[xultar]

8. Just calling the game like I see it bay-bay. Thanks.

[rocktivity]

18. Obama was naive? ROFL!!!

Oh, come now--do you REALLY believe that Obama believed that bipartisanship would work? Especially after the Rethugs prettymuch said to his face that they meant to stop reform in order stop HIM? All he HAD to do was sit back and give them enough rope to themselves--and they came through brilliantly. If he goes it alone on health care now--not to mention everything else on his agenda--well, who could "blame" him? He TRIED to be fair, LOL!

:headbang:
rocktivity

[roguevalley]

27. I don't mind him trying but there are people out there who are

sick with life threatening illnesses waiting for this to pass. To string this out so long when so many are hanging by a thread is unconscienable. He needed to kick them in the nuts and step on their face on the way to passing this bill and not make us live and die by all the conflicting message points.

[Jakes Progress]

28. Oh, yeah. I forgot.

It's the chess/checkers superman thing.

So your opinion is that Obama's whole campaign for the presidency was based on a lie?

[TheWraith]

25. You think Obama didn't know what the Republicans were doing better than we did? nt

[sellitman]

26. Demint is one of the most vile of all GOPers

But he is least honest. Obama should have paid him more attention before. I hate these GOP scum.

[femmocrat]

5. A day late and a dollar short....

It took the progressives to kick the WH out of their delusional pipe dream that repukes would listen to reason.

Someone said on TV last night---- after the public option, they will go after co-ops, then employer mandates and individual mandates. They never had any intention of cooperating with the democrats.

[glitch]

22. More like decades late and trillions short. But yeah, he's a bit slow. nt

[countingbluecars]

6. Thanks for posting this.

It is current-unlike the month old article about Rahm Emanuel I just read here.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

7. Good! Now they need to go back and strip out all the crap the Repubs added

to any bill in order to water it down. Why leave it in since they negotiated in bad faith from the beginning?

[xultar]

11. If they don't go back to the original with single-payer and work from there I'm gonna

blow my fucking top.

The republicans put shit in there on purpose to make sure reform fails after it is passed. If Obama, Reid and Pelosi don't take that shit out I'm gonna go fucking nutz. Like medieval nuts. Like coocoo for cooconuts NUTS. FUCKING RABID NUTS.

[BobRossi]

10. "No kidding"

And about fucking time! Grow a set Dems and act like you mean it.

[AspenRose]

12. Well it's about damn time....

That was a warning to the GOP that the hammer is about to come down. (I hope.)

I hope it comes down HARD, too.

[pnorman]

13. I'm with (what I believe to be) Obam's game plan.

That is to leave the door open for such HONEST bi-partisanship as may decide to enter. It doesn't do all that much harm to talk and feel each other out. The whining gang of "NO!" will then stand revealed to the American public for what they really are. Their overall approval level is already in the 20s. It can drop even lower, and they know it!

pnorman

[dsamuels0078]

17. obama

doesn't want single payer

[Doctor_J]

14. I will wait a day before celebrating

This WH twists more than the Chubby Checker Fan Club. If they're still saying the same thing by Friday, and acting on it, I will get excited.

[JTFrog]

16. The corporate masters dance with glee at your attempt to blame the spin on the WH.

Dance!
Dance!
Dance little puppets!

:evilgrin:

[hobbit709]

15. When was "bipartisanship" ever alive

except in the wishful thinking of some people.

[DevonRex]

20. I agree. It wasn't about achieving bipartisanship. It was about looking like

we wanted bipartisanship. And if, along the way, we actually picked up some republican votes then that was great.

The dems now look like reasonable statesmen who are willing to talk to everybody. The republicans look like loons who bring guns to health care debates.

I'd say mission accomplished.

[Jennicut]

24. Exactly. Chuck Grassley is twisting himself in knots as we type.

[rudy23]

19. They waited until we, the "left of the left" refused to get on board, until they declared "war"

Let's never forget that. They tried to kick us off board first, until they realized they couldn't win without us.

Today's press cycle is just a bunch of bells and whistles designed to make us happy again. Let's wait and see tomorrow's headlines before we can tell which way the White House is really leaning in all this.

[glitch]

23. Excellent points. nt

[and-justice-for-all]

29. GOOD! We do not need those pukes anyway...Dead Weight they are..nt

[Becky72]

30. Unrecommended because...

A look on Emanuel's words turns up no claim to the effect that "bipartisanship is dead." or anything close to it.

[flyarm]

31. "One could parse, and say Rahm's quote could still include the possibility of bipartisanship, "

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2009/08/19/a-chebby-in-the-national-driveway-lesson-in-healthcare-messaging/


Now that, folks, is how you sell your product. Were it only that the Barack Obama White House had a fraction of these skills in selling their national healthcare policy. Not so much. In fact, it has been an astoundingly flimsy and ill conceived pitch almost from the start, and we still don't know what in the world Obama and the White House really stand for on the topic. As Adam Green at Open Left put it:http://openleft.com/diary/14701/white-house-communications-team-wtf

One could parse, and say Rahm's quote could still include the possibility of bipartisanship, but still: there's something called message discipline. The last four days have seen: statement, backtrack, statement, backtrack.
...
Seriously. Can someone describe for me some master plan that might be at play here? If not, White House communications team -- WTF?

[Clear Blue Sky]

Pass the bill already. We own both houses of Congress.

[DU GrovelBot]

32. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

This week is our third quarter 2009 fund drive. Democratic Underground is
a completely independent website. We depend on donations from our members
to cover our costs. Please take a moment to donate! Thank you!