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 opinionmakers 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…
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Yeah, it’s dead, and I think the Republicans signed a DNR.
To be honest with you I think this was the approach the administration always was going to adopt at some point its just that the Republicans handed them the opportunity on a silver platter. If they were really serious or naive about the prospects of bipartisanship they never would have put reconcilliation rules in before hand if you ask me.
Grassley and Kyl just basically gift wrapped two quotes the past couple of days though. With Grassley saying he wouldn’t vote for a good bill if other Republicans wouldn’t vote for it and then having Kyl say most Republicans wouldn’t vote ffor it no matter what the concessions it was finally just too much to overloook. It was also the perfect justification for signaling a shift.
It didn’t hurt that with liberals and progressives freaking out over the public option that this would be the perfect bone to throw them either.
I have to say that I disagree with the left seeing the administration’s attempt to negotiate with the right as “naive”. I, personally, don’t think they had any choice but to at least make an attempt to negotiate. If not, the right would’ve whined and cried that the legislation was rammed through without any consultation while smacking Obama around for campaigning on “bipartisanship”. Isn’t that pretty much what happened with the stimulus bill?
ShrodingersCat
I agree that it was the right approach but lets remember that President Obama didn’t campaign on bipartisanship, he campaigned on doing stuff the right way. He said he would listen to all sides but it was John McCain who campaigned heavily on bipartisanship on the one hand touting legislation he coauthored on the other saying he wouldn’t vote for said legislation today when he started pandering to the right wing base.
Also the stimulus bill is the perfect example to show that Republicans are going to claim a lack of bipartisanship no matter what the Obama administration does. 1/3 of the bill was tax cuts but according to them it was a far left librul takeover of big gubmint. So it is what it is
Sg: Enzi, too. He said lawmakers were taking the wrong approach to reform, that it should be piecemeal. This guy is one of the gang of six, so what was he doing this whole time?
Also, let me throw this out here: Do you guys think Baucus knew the White House was going to take this stance, especially now, or do you think this is the administration’s way of laying down the law to Baucus?
Mike C.
In all honesty I think that this had gotten away from Baucus and he knew it and he was probably hoping the White House took the problem off his hands. Notice you haven’t heard a peep out of him since Grassley and Enzi basically started pi$$ing in his face after all these months of “negotiating”. Ezra Klein had a post a few days agoa bout how Baucus had first thought he was going to come out of this looking like a hero. Don’t think there is any chance of that anymore.
Sg: well, it may just be a matter of semantics, but if you google “Obama” and “bipartisanship” you can come up with about a dozen articles mentioning his “campaign promise” of “bipartisanship”. Rightly or wrongly, that perception is out there.
I agree with you, though, that the Repubs aren’t going to vote for a HCR bill regardless of what’s in it. I understand why the admin had to go through the motions; but as you said above, now that we’ve had several public pronouncements from the right (like Grassley) admitting that they won’t be on board, it’s time for the Dems to get their act together and pass some decent legislation.
sg,
you’re right about Baucus. He’s going to come out of this looking like the bought-and-paid-for shill for the healthcare insurance industry that he is.
Another opportunity for the republican party to show they are disinterested in promoting policy that improves the lives of the American people. All wrapped up in a bow. The difficult part here is that they have coopted the messaging very effectively. I’m with Rick Pearlstein, that this was the message Obama should have started with, and stuck with: “in America, no one should have to go broke because they get sick. “
wvng
Well yeah but then that would be labeled immediately as a “socialist” argument by the GOP.
sg, Obama did campaign on changing the tone in DC, ending the red state/blue state divide and I suspect he really wanted (wants?) to do that. I wanted that to happen, as did a clear majority of the American people. But the repugs only know how to sow division, which is truly sad.
Obama has made every reasonable (and unreasonable) effort to bring repugs in, and they simply refuse. I saw a note the other day that Specter told a town hall crowd the repug caucus decided very early on not to cooperate with Obama on anything. That should have been picked up and amplified. Wasn’t, tho.
Wvng: Hopefully now he sees that the best way to change the tone in Washington is by enacting sweeping reform and policies that will chasten or further squeeze the few remaining sane folks in the GOP to get their acts together.
wvng
Maybe it comes down to the definition of bipartisanship. John McCain’s idea of bipartisanship pretty much focused exclusively on getting legislation with votes from both parties or working across the aisle. President Obama’s bipartisanship was more about listening to all sides and not rejecting an idea just because it came from a conservative. But out of the gate they started predicting all these Republican votes they were going to get on the stimulus which set them up for failure ffrom that point on and allowed Republicans to redefine partisanship by actual votes on legislation. Why they did that I will never know as the Republicans pulled the same sh*t on Clinton over his first budget.
At this point Obama should just let loose. Repeal DOMA/DADT, start the move from Gitmo to the Michigan facility, release all the abuse photos, let the DOJ go full force after Cheney, expedite the expiration of the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest, legalize marijuana, declare it is unconstitutional for states to limit the rights of **** and let them be married and enforce the fairness doctrine on Fox News.
Come on, how can g*a*y*s be a blanked out word. Seriously guys.
Get with the program you neanderthals.
Great news, although I think rahm is the problem, not teh solution.
By the way, I’ve been following you here and at TPM. You do consistently excellent work. It makes a difference.
Wasn’t it Obama that brought up Jim DeMint’s statements a few times and even in a national press conference? I think they were pretty thrilled DeMint said what they knew most Repubs were thinking. I am sure Obama always realized that at best he would get Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to sign on. Thank God Specter is being primaried, he sure has fallen in line. Just think where we’d be right now without Specter?
TomP — thanks much, appreciate that.
ActBlue page for the 60 broke $100,000.
It’ll be interesting to see where this goes from here.
Especially if Kennedy is to ill to vote for cloture when the time comes. (I hope that doesn’t happen, but brain cancer doesn’t have a happy ending, either.)
We’ll see how future reporting and insider accounts tell us whether or how much this administration was surprised by the Republican strategy of full-out obstruction. And that will be interesting. There are accounts now arguing that the Obama team tried to avoid a perceived mistake by Hillary of appearing to isolate her process from Republicans and industry voices. If that’s so (and Obama did run on the promise to change how Washington works (which everyone does say in some form or other but reducing partisanship was a key theme since his keynote speech years ago) then they would surely have calculated the likely problems if they moved in the direction they have taken. They may well have been too optimistic. I was.
Sen. Rockefeller was right on this one:
Gee. You don’t suppose that all the recent talk about ditching the PO was a PLOY? A POKER GAME BLUFF? A successful attempt to get the GOP to show its CARDS? That no matter WHAT kind of reasonable options the Dems present, they’ll vote AGAINST it? And now, having seen the GOP’s cards, the Dems can go to the American people and say, convincingly, “Golly! And we SO wanted to work WITH them on this. Oh well. We’ll do it without them…”
Or would that be too… political?
MikeC: “the few remaining sane folks in the GOP.” I have, of late, realized there aren’t any. Certainly not honest folks. I can’t find a single repub who does not willingly entertain clearly false positions simply because it comfortably reinforces their world view. Not one. It is very very disheartening to me.
And reading Pearlstein’s chat the other day on RW movements, it was deeply disturbing that none of the “conservatives” were capable of making a distinction between extremists on the left (like Code Pink) who enjoy no status in or support from the Democratic party, and the endless parade of extremists on the right who are embraced by the repub establishment.
All Senators and all Congressman/women and the President are supposed to be representing ALL citizens. To disregard the “opposition” is telling the ENTIRE public that the Administration in charge doesn’t care what ALL citizen think. If the Administration wants to ignore the opposition, then give me back my tax money.
ONE NATION, INDIVISIBLE, UNDER GOD, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. Not, as we personally see fit. We are not yet under a Dictator, although the Way President Obama is appointing his “friends”, we are well on that way.
If the Obama Administration chooses to not consider ” the opposition”, then next election, they might be the opposition.
Excellent body of comments here this morning. Looks like it pays to get out of bed before the trolls
I’d echo what many have said. Rahm and the Prez haven’t held much hope for bipartisanship for quite a while. But they’ve played that string out, presumably for its valuable optics. And I’d expect them to keep up the make-nice rhetoric for still a while yet — at least until the bill is voted out of the Senate and into conference.
Oops… Looks like I didn’t get out of bed quite early enough!
I didn’t know it was ever alive and well.
Judging from the last 8 years, bipartisanship to Republicans means giving them 99% of what they want. If not, we are the enemy.
Robert Fisher, PE — you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
Robert Fisher, Professional Engineer | August 19th, 2009 at 10:08 am
All Senators and all Congressman/women and the President are supposed to be representing ALL citizens. To disregard the “opposition” is telling the ENTIRE public that the Administration in charge doesn’t care what ALL citizen think. If the Administration wants to ignore the opposition, then give me back my tax money.
…………………………
I am sorry, but you are far too late with that request. Bush/Cheney, and the Republican majorities in both house and Senate completely ignored the Democrats, and just rammed everything through on straight party votes.
Write to Dallas, and request your refund.
@robert fisher
gee, where were you the last 8 years when shrub admin ignored not only the opposition but also teh “citizens” ? AND STOP SHOUTING.
I guess the Republicans’ “Death Panel” decided to pull the plug on bi-partisanship.
Judging from the last 8 years, bipartisanship to Republicans means giving them 99% of what they want. If not, we are the enemy.
Pretty much. It’s not unlike wishing someone “Happy Holidays” at the end of December means you hate Jesus Christ………
By the by…handy information…WHO rankings of the world’s health systems. Lotsa data. http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks.html
Bernie: Useful data, but a bit stale. Viz:
jzap – given the complexity of such institutions, I expect 9 years wouldn’t show up a sliver of difference, certainly not a significant difference.
By continuing to plead for “bipartisanship”, the President is politically subsidizing the GOP by ensuring their relevance. The GOP’s low approval numbers tell us that they are not too big to fail. Let them.
Urgent Memo:
To The White House.
STFU about Bipartisanship. Do you guys have even a clue about staying on message. Once again you are handing the Republicans yet another distracting issue to capture the news cycle with. Yet another day that the focus will be off health insurance reform, and the Public Option.
You are starting to look ridiculous and pathetic, with your constant pursuit, and wooing of those who wants to kill you.
You are coming across as a love sick lamb, who keeps wanting to be loved by a vicious Lion, and no matter how many times it has clawed your face off, you keep trying to snuggle up against it.
Get a grip. You have The White House, The Senate and The Congress. We gave you all that to get the job done. Get on with it, and just STFU about Bipartisanship.
Keep your eyes on the prize. A Public Option. Focus like a laser on that.
You know, I read some good comments until I read Robert Fisher’s. Does anyone get how long THE AMERICAN PEOPLE have worked for change. They did not want to be lied to, treated like dirt and become collateral damage to the bad marriage of corporation and government anymore. So when you think about ONE NATION, INDIVISIBLE, UNDER GOD, WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, let me make this clear: the Republicans have made laws in the last 8 years that have exploited the constitution, the American people and put anyone in opposition to them in internment camps. Innocent people are dying in their draconian prison system. Honest, hardworking people spend all day catering to the rich in order to pay for attorneys fees and doctor bills. So when the Republicans say that they still want to be in charge after the American people said they CLEARLY wanted change, I say good riddance. It is time to stop. Stop killing people, stop jailing innocent people, stop exploiting human beings and using the insurance company death panel to decide grandmas fate, stop bragging about bringing health care, education, and democracy to 3rd world countries while you systematically dismantle all of those things at home, and by all means stop using the name of my savior to justify your sick behavior.
Hey, Robert Fisher, Professional Engineer but amateur political analyst –
So all Senators and all Congressman/women and the President are supposed to be representing ALL citizens? Does the name George W. Biush mean anything to you?
When you say that, “To disregard the “opposition” is telling the ENTIRE public that the Administration in charge doesn’t care what ALL citizen think,” you fail to understand that ALL citizens do not agree. What to do then? It is a simple fact that some just won’t be happy. Deal with it.
“If the Administration wants to ignore the opposition, then give me back my tax money.” Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Just ask any Iraq war protester.
, “no kidding.”
“”To be honest with you I think this was the approach the administration always was going to adopt at some point its just that the Republicans handed them the opportunity on a silver platter”"
Um. Yeah. Ok.
So it was all a big ruse to ram through the public option on their own? That’s hysterical.
The Obama administration is doubling down on massive fail by having the Democrats take ownership of this monstrosity.
Good luck with that in 2010 and 2012….
Gosh, didn’t Republican activist Grover Norquist define bipartisanship as ‘Date Rape’? How do you walk that back after years of committing date rape, when the GOP ran every branch of government? They should ride their way out of town on a pony named ‘date rape.’
What needs to be dead are the democrat operatives trying to overthrow the U.S. government through the schemes, wiles, snares, lies, half truths, deceptions, and deviations purpetrated by the Liar and Illegal Alien In Chief, bar’aack hussein obama; the ultimate Trojan Horse and communist plant.
But the truth shall prevail, and even now Americans are seeing through the smoke of falsehoods and realizing that ‘health care reform’ as peddled by the illegal alien hussein is merely a front to further expand govt power and in so doing, to put the people of America under the govt’s thumb.
It will not work.
The fifth columnists and Quizlings who are now selling out this country will be stopped, their schemes and wiles will come to naught, and those who purpertrated and promolgated them will be held accountable to the highest degree.
President Obama needs to promote an ‘American’ values bill, that simply touts the goodness of America, nothing more. Then make the Republicans in both houses vote on it. However they choose to vote, they will then end up looking bad to many Americans either way.
Mike! Vis your Aug 19 post, you have GOT to be kidding. (I know this is a liberal site and conservatives are personna non grata, but here goes.)
“…Obama should just let loose…declare it is unconstitutional for states to limit the rights of **** and let them be married and enforce the fairness doctrine on Fox News.”
The prez has no power to declare ANYTHING unconstitutional, including the ‘rights of ****.” Ya ever heard of “State’s Rights? How can he declare something unconsitutional when it would be unconsitutional to do so? As for “enforce the fairness doctrine (FD)on Fox News, first he’d have to resurrect it first. THEN, as it would be “fairness,” he couldn’t simply enforce it on ONE Network. It would have to be sweeping. H*ll, even Alan Colmes is scared to death the FD. It would also be the death of liberal talk radio and TV. (Bye, bye, MSNBC!) DUDE! At least your fellow posters made SOME salient comments. Yours was off the map!