Posted by Warner Todd Huston Sep 2nd 2011 at 4:58 am in Democrats/progressives, Economics, GOP, Mainstream Media, New York Times, Obama, Washington Post, journalism, media bias The American left and its handmaidens in the Old Media spent 24 hours desperately trying to spin Obama’s attempt to schedule a joint session of Congress on the same day as the GOP debate as an example of how the GOP is refusing to work with him. These leftists categorically deny that Obama was simply engaging in political brinkmanship, using his selection of Sept. 7 as a political ploy. But the very night that Obama was shot down by Speaker Boehner on the date he chose for his jobs address, Obama’s campaign sent out a fundraising letter that pretty much proves that Obama intended the whole episode to be the very political ploy his pals in the Old Media tried to deny was happening.
On Aug 31, President Obama announced as if it were set the date of Sept. 7 for his jobs speech to a joint session of Congress. Of course, he and his staff knew that Sept. 7 was the date scheduled months ago for the next GOP presidential debate. It was clearly an attempt by Obama to overshadow the debate, the first one that Texas Gov. Rick Perry would be a part.
One problem here is that the protocol of scheduling a joint session of Congress was not observed by this White House. The fact is a president cannot schedule a joint session of Congress on his own hook. He simply does not have that power Constitutionally. He must ask the Senate majority leader and the speaker of the House of Representatives if the date he is requesting will work. Such a date has to be agreed upon by Congress before announcements are made. Obama did not do this. He simply tried to decree on what date the speech would be held and announced that date as if it were settled.
This was an unprecedented move.
When his press secretary was asked about this date confusion, Obama’s mouth piece arrogantly told the GOP that they could reschedule the times for their debate scheduled months ago. This was the first bit of evidence that Obama was trying to use this incident as a bald political ploy.
Speaker Boehner, of course, denied the president his date choice. Boehner’s reason was sound and did not necessarily have anything to do with the date of the GOP debate. Boehner sent a letter to the White House informing the president that there wasn’t enough logistical time to arrange the joint session on the 7th and counter offered the 8th as a better date.
Then for the next 24 hours the Old Media went to bat for Obama, big time, slashing at the GOP as the bad actor in this powerplay instead of properly pinpointing this petty president as the problem. Roland Martin of CNN, for instance, urged Obama not to “cave to Boehner” by accepting the change of the date that Obama wanted to make his speech.
Martin laughably claimed that it was Boehner that was trying to “trump the president,” instead of offering a more truthful characterization of the president trying to overshadow the GOP debate.
The National Journal tried to paint the whole incident as a “Petty Day-Long Dispute,” instead of understanding that all the pettiness was coming from Obama, not the GOP.
The Washington Post attempted to spin Obama’s pettiness as some brilliant political move because by accepting Boehner’s change of date that gave Obama “the final word.”
Not to be beat out on shilling for the far left, The New York Times claimed that this was an example that Congress would not be a “kinder, gentler bipartisan” player in the upcoming fall session. Absurdly, the whole NYT article painted Speaker Boehner as just as petty as Obama. This is the sort of reductio ad absurdum that says that the victim of a bully is just as much to blame as the bully for the violence visited on the victim.
The Hill was no different by painting this incident as the “contentious work session to come.” Once again, this report does not pinpoint the blame properly as the fault of the White House for announcing dates before agreements were reached.
For his part, Ezra Klein of the left-leaning Washington Post claimed that this whole incident was a “loss” for “the people” because Boehner “got cute” and denied the president his date.
There are far more examples than this, of course, but these will suffice to show the trend.
From all the “analysis” of these Old Media mavens, we’d imagine that this is an example of both sides being obstructionist, the GOP being petty, and the president being exasperated by the GOP’s obstructionism. We also see that Obama is absolved from making this a political powerplay, a powerplay that he lost. They all basically denied that Obama was making a play to take attention away from the GOP debates. These “news” folks also do not focus properly on the fact that the White House ignored protocol in the first place in arranging joint sessions of Congress. The facts point to this being the fault of the White House. These are facts that the Old Media did its best to downplay or deny.
So, where is my proof that Obama and his White House advisors fully meant this to be a powerplay? That very night after he initiated this kerfuffle over speech dates his political group sent out a campaign letter based on the “frustration” Obama was experiencing due to the evil GOP.
At 10PM on the night of August 31, Obama’s reelection campaign sent out an email titled “frustrated.”
“I know that you’re frustrated by that. I am, too,” the email had Obama “saying” to his supporters.
The email goes on:
It’s been a long time since Congress was focused on what the American people need them to be focused on. That’s why I’m putting forward a set of bipartisan proposals to help grow the economy and create jobs — that means strengthening our small businesses, giving needed breaks to middle-class families, while taking responsible steps to bring down our deficit.
The president continued: “I’m asking lawmakers to look past short-term politics and take action on that plan. But we’ve got to do this together.This whole joint session date dance was obviously engineered to make the GOP look like they are obstructionists for the president’s obviously selfless desire to get America back on track and the Old Media did its best to assist Obama to parlay that feeling.
Contrary to what the Old Media is trying to lead America to believe, this whole mess over the date of his jobs speech was a cynical political ploy in an attempt to make the GOP look like the bad guy in Washington. This means that all the pettiness, all the contentiousness, all the foolishness was started by The White House. The GOP merely reacted.
If even CNN’s James Carville understands that the president was “out of bounds,” you know that the White House was attempting political brinkmanship with the GOP debate.
Big Journalism
