Woodward tells Obama truths that Brown, CalBuzzers can’t handle

Sept. 10, 2012

By Chris Reed

The California branch of the massive Organization of Obama Apologists has timed its latest incantation of cliches poorly. Today’s Rough & Tumble features a story about Gov. Jerry Brown and a column by the CalBuzz boys that excuse the president’s poor performance because alleged relentless Republican opposition doomed him to failure.

Why is their timing bad? Because of the growing buzz over Bob Woodward’s new book, which paints a harsh picture of a president who’s not very good at his job. Woodward makes the obvious but bizarrely rarely mentioned counterpoint to the obstruction argument: Obama is far from the first president to face strong congressional opposition. This is from the ABC News website:

Woodward’s reporting in his new book, “The Price of Politics,” reveals a president whom he said lacked the “stamina” in turning personal relationships with congressional leaders into action the way some of his predecessors have done.

“President Clinton, President Reagan. And if you look at them, you can criticize them for lots of things. They by and large worked their will,” Woodward told Sawyer.”On this, President Obama did not.”

“Now, some people are going to say he was fighting a brick wall, the Republicans in the House and the Republicans in Congress. Others will say it’s the president’s job to figure out how to tear down that brick wall. In this case, he did not.”

This honesty is so unusual in the national media. The norm is to accept the Democratic talking point that Obama would be a successful president if only Republican lawmakers cared about the future of the nation more than politics, blah blah blah.

But why won’t CalBuzzers Jerry Roberts and Phil Trounstine go beyond the surface of this argument?

The main gripe about Obama is the poor economy. The main excuse is things would be better if Republicans had let Obama pass another massive stimulus using borrowed money.

Really? So Republicans are supposed to do the following …

1) Ignore the evidence that the extremely costly last stimulus didn’t do remotely what it was supposed to;

2) Ignore the fact that they gained 60-plus House seats in 2010 by running against the stimulus, Obamacare, etc., and giving the burgeoning tea party movement what it wanted.

There it is. The core of the evil-GOP-obstructionists argument is that party members won’t borrow more money for a policy that they don’t think works, and that they won’t betray their most passionate supporters.

And this makes them evil?

I’ve enjoyed sparring with Phil and Jerry, but I wish they would engage contrary arguments. Instead, they just play to their base: Democrats.

And, of course, the Sacramento media.