Axelrod: We Won’t Be “Distracted” By Washington Obsession With AIG
Last week, Rahm Emanuel called the AIG fiasco a “big distraction.” David Axelrod followed suit, suggesting that the American people don’t really care about the whole mess.
And here’s Axelrod again, expanding on his previous comments:
“This is the kind of issue Washington chases like catnip,” David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, lamented in an interview. “What would be a mistake would be to get so distracted by the catnip-chasers that we lose our own path. We are not going to do that.”
I think I finally get what Emanuel and Axelrod have been trying to say: The point they’re making is that they’re not going to let public outrage over AIG force them to make what they see as bad policy choices. Woozy Washington politicians are chasing the AIG issue like “catnip,” and that won’t dissuade the Obama administration from its “own path.”
We now know that Obama and his advisers aren’t crazy about the new House plan to tax back those AIG bonuses. Obama himself expressed some doubt about it in an interview with CBS News.
This suggests that Obama may be preparing to part ways with Congress over at least some aspects of its response to the AIG mess. So maybe Emanuel and Axelrod have been trying to lay the groundwork for that possibility or to give Obama maneuvering room in general.
Still, Axelrod’s latest comments again strike faintly dismissive overtones towards AIG as an issue. And it’s unclear, at least to me, why Obama’s advisers aren’t going with the more elegant formulation being used by Obama himself: “We can’t govern out of anger.” That acknowledges very real public rage over the mess while also preparing the public for the possibility that Obama won’t embrace some of the solutions hastily adopted by Congress.
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Dismissive? Maybe dismissive of the “catnip-chasers” and rightfully so. Catnip-chasers meaning the practitioners of the “ideology of fluff” prime examples of whom are the White House press and the Washington political class. The interviews on 60 Minutes and Leno were not dismissive to the people Obama was talking to, meaning those of us outside of Washington. “We can’t govern out of anger” and “It’s important that we don’t lurch from thing to thing” were not dismissive messages.
You have anything on the 60 Minutes ratings from last night, Greg?
Hmmm lets see. Nominees with tax problems yeah that was a HUGE story for about a week. Earmarks, that was a HUGE story for about two weeks. Condoms in the stimulus bill, that was a HUGE story for about 3 days. Now bonuses for AIG which will be a HUGE story for about another week or so. Axlerod is absolutely right about the substance of this. Now whether he should have said it in an interview is debatable. But the question I wonder about is when he granted the interview in the first place. Was it before or after President Obama changed his tone? I guess we will never know. But I do know this, as outrageous as those bonuses are, even if we got back every cent it wouldn’t do a damm thing towards getting our economy back on track. Yet now instead on working on the President’s budget we have Congress organizing all these hearings and passing tax bills that won’t actually do anything except create a legal boondoggle that will eventually get overturned by the Supreme Court should the Senate actually pass it. This is all a distraction that on the one hand is ginned up by the media coverage and on the other is condemned by the oped writers in those same media sources. One day the headline is “Outrageous Bonuses From AIG” the next day the op ed is “We Are Going To Ruin Wall Street”. Its all bull and maybe if our chattering class actually had the country in mind instead of their own ratings we wouldn’t be having these distractions from the big picture.
I think I’ve figured out some of what is going on. Or to use David Axelrod’s word, part of what is creating the catnip. We have all these economists–many of them carrying around little bags with Nobel Prizes in them. These men are used to being smart and producing theories few other people in the world can even understand. Now they see a once in a lifetime chance to test their ideas in the biggest economic crisis in decades. I’m thinking some of them are feeling really left out. If they’re not on the economic team making the calls or being consulted regularly, they probably feel like generals made to sit out a war. Aside from their deep-seated civic mindedness, this feeling of being unfairly passed over surely explains a lot of their unrest. Actually, it is more than unrest. It’s anger (which the president says we can’t govern from) and bitterness. It’s disdain.
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So what can we do? I have a proposal. Instead of continuing to rile up a populace already traumatized by the damage virtually everyone has experienced in this financial system meltdown, why don’t the economists take it to the streets? I am thinking of something like a multi-pronged duel. Or just a regular battle. They can take all the bloggers and columnists and yakking heads they want with them to serve as ammo runners or chuckwagon drivers, drummer boys and buglers–whatever they think will work from their given century of expertise. And this can be totally knock down, drag out. Pitchforks. Molotov cocktails. The works.
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Of course, since this is America, this conflict should be televised. We’re a nation of spectators and fans, and we all have a stake in the outcome. Everyone will be able to find somebody to root for since we’re good at picking sides even when we’ve just heard of somebody five minutes ago. We can yell, and scream and drink beer. We can even throw shoes at the television. Then finally, when the last shot is fired or the last head has rolled and the dust has settled, we can see who won so we can forget it right away the way we forget who won the Super Bowl. The winner is whoever’s left standing. He gets to rustle up some unsullied, easily vetted lieutenants who’ll sail through confirmation hearings and be able to help him execute a recovery plan that’s flawless and swift and utterly fair. Then he’ll ride off to the Treasury to be crowned as CFO of the whole world’s fiscal disaster.
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I think this would be wonderfully cathartic for everyone and I hope the economists are ready to rumble. On the off chance they’re not, there may be an alternative. They could retire to their offices and write up their ideas, x-ing out all the ad hominem attacks. And then they could offer their plans to the White House and make themselves available for discussion, which, after all, is what the president asked them to do in the first place.
I don’t think Obama “changed his tone” at all. He’s had the same tone all along, same focus on the big picture. It’s the giddy foofies of the White House press that can’t seem to follow. They are too busy chasing Politico and Drudge links. That’s the catnip – Drudge links. I don’t think any of them are very bright. Maybe that’s what qualifies them for their TV spots.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Declaration of Independence continued…
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Just FYI
I don’t think people would care if the MSM hadn’t jumped into this with both feet and made it into something that it fundamentally isn’t and didn’t have to be.
On the one hand, there are journalists writing stories about how Obama is losing his promise and better be careful and the same damn people are accusing him of paying more attention to his popularity than anythingelse.
Thank you, media, for setting up an impossible situation for the president and for anyone who is actually worried about the real problems – the real economic problems that have nothing to do with this nonsense.
Y’all are all fuckers (that won’t show up so use your imagination.)
Tena
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Dang you had your coffee this morning huh? lol I thought I was bad
I don’t know where you all live, but the AIG bonuses ARE a big deal where I am. People who I have never heard a political comment out of are talking about it and are very very angry. So am I.
What it is is a symbol of all that is wrong with the bailouts in general. We are handing out HUGE sums of money to the very people who caused this problem: They destroyed our retirements. (I know three people who retired this year and had to return to work.) They destroyed our jobs, we are forced to shop at wall-mart, to watch every penny, people are giving away their pets because they can’t afford to feed them for christ’s sake, and these guys, that destroyed our economy and the companies that they worked for to such an extent that they require taxpayer funds to keep them afloat because if we let them fail it will get WORSE, are getting HUGE bonuses? That doesn’t piss you of? Get a grip folks it ain’t just the Washington media that’s angry and that Obama and his staff don’t get that really makes me wonder about his judgment. There comes a point when a President loses credibility with the American people, George Bush lost it during Katrina and never got it back. It is way too early for Obama to risk that but it may be what this is coming to.
What Axelrod is saynig is fine, but the underlying dismissive and contemptuous attitude signals how out of touch he and Emmanuel already have become. They are living in their own private Idaho on Pennsylvania Avenue and don’t understand that the bonus issue is simply a lightning rod for the massive disapproval the public has for the entire Obama plan to continue handing free taxpayer money to the crooks on Wall Street. That’s the issue and they can ignore it if they want, but the longer they stay in denial about how their plan, the more damage there will be to the administration’s plans.
Henk, I suggest you go read the interview transcript and see what Obama had to say about AIG and the bonuses. Maybe you didn’t see the 60 minutes interview which would be a shame. He had plenty to say about them and the angry reaction to them in the real world.Here’s a link to Huffington Post transcript and video: BARACK OBAMA:
I’ve told them directly. ‘Cause I’ve heard some of this. they need to spend a little time outside of New York. Because– you know, if you go to North Dakota, or you go to Iowa, or you go to Arkansas, where folks would be thrilled to be making $75,000 a year– without a bonus, then I think they’d get a sense of why people are frustrated.
I think we have to understand the severity of the crisis that we’re in right now. The fact is that, because of bad bets made on Wall Street, there have been enormous losses.
There is no “massive disapproval” for Obama’s plan. What “private Idaho” do you live in? Limbaugh-land?
Leno pulled in huge ratings, the 60 Minutes interview pulled in huge overnight ratings – people are making their own opinions up about Obama and that’s killing the infotainment talking heads.
It’s not the bonuses. It’s the people who allowed it to happen. The article in Rolling Stone lays it all out.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover
by Matt Taibbi We’ve got a really big problem here and I’m afraid we are still being led down a path of no return.
Someone should give the Obama crew some hearty blows with a clue stick. When my wife, who refuses to discuss politics, starts conversation about the AIG bonuses and the Obama complicity therein, you had better believe this topic is on the radar of the general public. She and her cow-orkers have definitely tied the Obama administration to the disbursement of these monies and that is not a good thing for the administration. “Long term strategy” is meaningless if you surrender your power through short-term tactical blunders.
It’s unbelievable to me how many MSM types and bloggers have chosen sides between rival economic approaches and assumed the Obama administration is out of touch and incompetent on this. Henk, as Obama said on 60 Minutes, he’s often faced with choosing between bad and worse options due to the bad choices made before he came into office. I think he’s trying to do is whatever it takes to keep the whole world economy from collapsing, which would mean things would go from difficult economically to impossible. Of course people are angry at the people who caused the problem and the ways they may still benefit (though, thanks–I wouldn’t want AIG attached to my name), but why should this anger so blind us that we all go off a cliff?
My wife and HER co-workers definitely put the blame on decisions made during the bush administration and by AIG and Wall Street. Guess my wife and her co-workers are much smarter than yours.
The bonuses are not a big deal?
The banks job is to manage the money of the consumers well. They failed miserably at that, and now the administration thinks its ok to reward them with bonuses using money from the same people who’s money was mismanaged. Thats outrageous.
Mike, you’ve reduced the argument nicely. Problem is your facts are wrong. Obama has expressed his outrage and ordered Geithner to do everything he can that’s legal to get the money back. And there actually are legal issues with these contracted bonuses as Tena has been pointing out.
Funny how dim people read “What would be a mistake would be to get so distracted by the catnip-chasers that we lose our own path. We are not going to do that.” as “The bonuses are NOT A BIG DEAL???” Reading comprehension, my friend. Try it.
ThomasT, as one of those whose reading comprehension, in your opinion, is lacking let me say. First off I was commenting more in general about Axelrod. Here’s what he said the other day:
“People are not sitting around their kitchen tables thinking about AIG,” Axelrod said. “They are thinking about their own jobs.”
Here’s what Emmanual said:
“As angry as the president is at the news about A.I.G., which he learned Thursday, Mr. Emanuel said, “his main priority is getting the financial system stabilized, and he believes this is a big distraction in that effort.”
Here’s what I said: “Get a grip folks it ain’t just the Washington media that’s angry and that Obama and his staff don’t get that really makes me wonder about his judgment.”
Obama was making the right noises on 60 minutes AFTER Axelrod and Emmanuel went out there a F’d it up. I don’t disagree that this is a distraction, but I really wonder about Obama’s judgment in allowing two of his spokesmen to go out and try to minimize the anger of millions and millions of people.
You really seem to be investing a lot of time defending? I always wonder about multi-posters like yourself. Who do you they work for, are they posers, that sort of thing.
Henk,
well, go ahead and wonder all you want. It’s irrelevant, really.
This:
“As angry as the president is at the news about A.I.G., which he learned Thursday, Mr. Emanuel said, “his main priority is getting the financial system stabilized, and he believes this is a big distraction in that effort.”
is not exactly minimizing the anger, is it? As for Axelrod’s statement, I don’t agree with it because all of my colleagues are angry about the bonuses as well. But that was actually an early statement. If he said it today, I’d think he was even more out of touch than the White House press foofies, but he said it, like, last week.I think you are a victim of the cable news hump-and-pump. They love it that you are blaming Obama. It isn’t exactly rational to do that.
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