Over the past few days, as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) pushed ahead on the most partisan piece of significant legislation in the Senate’s storied history, political leaders on the left have sought to blame Republicans for the failure to achieve passage sooner. President Obama’s political consultant in the West Wing, David Axelrod, said as much on Meet the Press. Former DNC Chairman Howard Dean echoed these statements on the same program. And now the line seems to be at the top of every liberal talking points memo in Washington.
However, this line of political attack is patently false. First, there is the obvious fact that the media is choosing to ignore — the Democrats have overwhelming majorities in the House and Senate, and control the White House. How can one party meaningfully obstruct from a position of 40 votes in the Senate? Since a vote will in fact occur on Christmas Eve, it has been proven that you simply cannot effectively obstruct from the ultra-minority position. But more importantly, this line of political attack overlooks the two greatest obstructionists operating today — President Obama and Harry Reid.
The glaring follow-up question to that is: ‘how can a majority leader or president obstruct?’ It’s actually quite simple. By shutting conservatives out of the negotiations from the beginning to the end, the far-left leaders in the White House, House and Senate have ended up with a bill that is absent of compromise, reason, or the moderate undertones necessary to successfully transform one-sixth of our national economy. By obstructing any true debate, any real dialogue, or any honest negotiations in place of buyouts, bribes and kickbacks for the moderates on the left, Obama and Reid have caused the legislative process to move at a snail’s pace. Liberals and conservatives can see that the horrendous legislation isn’t getting any better, and therefore simply hold out for a $300 million payout so they can try and rescue their own careers back home.
Liberals will bemoan that this is a sign of the times. Partisanship is simply the way of Washington these days and is mostly the fault of the right. But is it really? When President Bush passed his significant overhaul of federal education initiatives, No Child Left Behind, it passed in the House by a 384-45 margin and in the Senate by a 91-8 margin, championed by former Senator Ted Kennedy himself. That was in 2001, President Bush’s first year in office. These pre-conference votes took place before the good-natured comity immediately following the attack on our nation in September. At this time, Republicans controlled the House, and Democrats controlled the Senate (after the defection of Vermont’s Jim Jeffords (I-VT) in May 2001). Bipartisanship is not a product of long-past eras like Ed Sullivan, black and white movies and the fashionable smoking of cigarettes. President Obama’s predecessor (as Obama likes to call him) was able to pass significant reforms, even if everyone didn’t see eye-to-eye simply by not closing down the process to the minority party.
This week, Senator Harry Reid will prevent any amendments from being offered onto the health care legislation that was set in motion this morning at 1:18 AM. By “filling the amendment tree,” Reid eliminates any opportunity for Republicans to at least attempt to put their imprint on the legislation, and who knows, get one or two bipartisan supporters in the process. Republicans were similarly locked out of backroom negotiations after the Baucus version of the bill was unveiled in October with Fox News airing video of media members being pushed out of a room while White House advisors and liberal Senators negotiated the framework for what was voted on this morning.
Since his term began, President Obama has held dozens of meetings and strategy sessions at the White House with Members of Congress, and Republicans haven’t been invited to a single one since April. They weren’t invited even after they wrote the President begging to find “common ground.” That’s hardly similar to President Bush and Ted Kennedy calling each other to hammer out education reform details, or their meeting on a host of other issues such as border security (in which President Bush also worked closely with Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who could hardly be called a moderate). In fact, the story of Ted Kennedy and First Lady Laura Bush learning of the September 11 attacks together while working on education reform is part of the legend of Washington itself.
And if obstructionism of the opposing party isn’t enough, the left has been adamantly committed to obstructing the American people from even knowing the details of the legislation. Americans were promised transparent negotiations on CSPAN, and several days to read and understand legislation. Poll after poll shows a majority of Americans opposed to what they do know about the legislation, yet Congress arrogantly moved forward without allowing any meaningful time to read and deliberate in order to meet arbitrary political benchmarks. This morning’s vote took place less than 48 hours after the legislation was significantly altered in the Reid Amendment. As fiercely independent and health care reform advocate New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Sunday: “…when I talk to Congressman and Senators and say ‘what’s in the bill’ none of them really know…I don’t know how you can intelligently decide whether to vote for it or not if you don’t know what it’s going to do.”
So why is there this rush toward partisan obstructionism on the left? Is it merely for an historical achievement other than huge deficit spending bills for President Obama to hang his first-term hat on? And if so, isn’t a bipartisan compromise with actual reform measures worth more in political capital than a narrowly divided legislative package that serves nobody’s interests except those of the White House? President Bush, as a former governor, understood the desperate situation in many of America’s public school systems and urgently cared about reform. He knew that for it to succeed, Democrats would have to be on board from the beginning. If President Obama actually cares about health care reform, why has his leadership in this process been limited to Democrat-only closed-door caucus meetings and Organizing for America political rallies? Why have we not seen Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) or House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) be invited to one single meeting at the White House in the past eight months?
The narrative that conservatives have obstructed and offered no alternatives is literally and factually debunked. It simply isn’t true nor does it make any sense. Ideas like selling insurance across state lines or allowing individuals to carry their insurance from job to job aren’t ideas of the past or “more of the same,” as the left likes to falsely describe conservative alternatives. They are meaningful conservative ideas that cost nothing and possibly would have broken the logjam we see in the Senate today. Real reform has been obstructed, and unfortunately the obstructionism has come from the very authors of the legislation that nobody in Congress or America can stand to see passed.
It has been an interesting and puzzling couple weeks watching the White House communications office at work. First, on October 11, Anita Dunn publicly rebuked Fox News on Howard Kurtz’ CNN show calling it the “research arm of the Republican Party.” Then, we learned Ms. Dunn counted Mao Zedong as a “favorite philosopher” and it seemed like a score was settled and everyone would move on. But the White House stepped up their attack on Fox News last Sunday by sending Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor David Axelrod on the morning shows to continue this confusing line of attack, that Fox News is not a “legitimate news organization” by White House standards. And even worse, President Obama then joined the fight.
This week, President Obama said Fox News was “operating basically like talk radio.” Missing that millions of Americans listen to and trust “talk radio,” this was meant as another jab at Fox’s credibility. Jake Tapper of ABC News courageously questioned Robert Gibbs on the White House anti-Fox policy. And now yesterday, the White House decided to try and ban Fox News from a briefing with Obama’s Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg. Entering into potentially unconstitutional territory, the White House press office did not expect what came next. The White House press corp united against this behavior and demanded Fox is included, or nobody goes. The White House relented. So the question today is, what is the White House end game here?
It escapes no viewers that there is a difference between commentators on Fox, such as Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck or Bill O’Reilly and their news gatherers and reporters such as Carl Cameron, Shepard Smith and Major Garrett. This point has been made repeatedly, and most people outside of the White House get it. Most Americans don’t judge NBC’s Brian Williams by how inappropriately Rachel Maddow acts, or how Chris Matthews gets a special feeling up his leg, or for Keith Olbermann being…Keith Olbermann. Americans are smart enough to separate news and commentary. But here are some other alternative theories for this odd, baffling, weird and bewildering attack on a news organization.
Press Conference Retribution: One popular theory that the White House seems to favor is that this is all because Fox’s Broadcast Network chose not to air the President’s non-news-making, fourth prime time press conference. Instead, Foxed aired a ratings bonanza reality TV show and carried the President’s press conference on the news channel only. Let’s forget for a moment that most of the other networks probably wish they had made the same decision in hindsight. Even if the White House wanted to settle the score, ignoring the difference between the news and entertainment channels, wouldn’t a couple weeks of freezing out some hosts and quietly calling on them last in press briefings have made the point? Is that enough reason for this war on Fox? It’s doubtful.
Teach Other Media Outlets a Lesson: This theory is plausible. It’s possible the White House knows it will lose this battle with Fox but in a Machiavellian move, decided to wage the battle to show less powerful, and less resourced media members that if they try reporting on stories like ACORN, Van Jones, Anita Dunn, and Kevin Jennings they’ll get treated the same way. This theory holds well because it seems to be working. The other major networks and print outlets are, in large part, relegating the major scandals of the Obama Administration to the back burners. Fox News is left carrying the weight alone. Which in turn makes these stories seem like one network’s axe to grind.
A Publicity Stunt? Since Fox News is enjoying a rating bonanza, and the next interview they get with a Senior Administration Official will be must-see TV, maybe this was all coordin…nah, that’s impossible.
Make Every Other News Organization Look Managed: By attacking the news organization that has caused them angst, the White House is making the rest of the press corps seem well managed by Obama’s brass. Anita Dunn’s original tirade occurred on CNN. How does CNN feel that the White House is complaining about tough questions from another media outlet on their network, thereby implying that no such tough investigative reporting comes from them?
America expects the press corp to ask the White House and the President tough questions. America expects investigative journalism in the Woodward and Bernstein sense. Digging for stories, getting the facts and reporting them. This is systemic check and balance on the power of the Presidency and one of the primary reasons a “free press” was so important to the founders of our nation. And this is why the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) was created under President Wilson, specifically to keep the White House independent of deciding who is and who isn’t “legitimate” in their eyes. And this is why the WHCA is now uniting behind their colleagues at Fox.
Certainly no news organization wants to be next on the White House enemies list. But more importantly, no news organization wants to be exposed for being less investigative than another. Journalists take pride in their role as the “fourth estate” and the more Fox is called out for being a thorn in the side of the President, the more it is revealed that the rest of the press corps causes them no problems to begin with. All journalists are “research arms” of the public regardless of party, because if they’re not researching, who is? No White House should have a problem-free relationship with the press because no White House is perfect in every way.
So what does the White House get out of calling a news organization the “opposition?” Even Howard Kurtz who originally broke this story says: “...I question what the White House gets out of that.” Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik said this morning: “What it’s really about to me is the Executive Branch of the government trying to tell the press how it should behave. I mean, this democracy — we know this — only works with a free and unfettered press to provide information.”
So what is the end game for a White House bent on kicking Fox News out of the briefing room? The reasons listed above? A health care reform package that goes unread and unchallenged? A huge energy tax that goes unread and unchallenged? A scandal free administration? This not only misjudges Fox’s ability to weather these attacks but it misjudges a journalist’s instincts to not be considered pawns, to protect their colleagues, and to protect their constitutional rights.