"On 60 Minutes, President Obama apologizes to America for being a Democrat"

KoKo

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Mon Nov-08-10 06:02 PM
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"On 60 Minutes, President Obama apologizes to America for being a Democrat"

Edited on Mon Nov-08-10 06:26 PM by KoKo

On 60 Minutes, President Obama apologizes to America for being a Democrat

November 8, 2010 by Peter �

The title of this post is intentionally hyperbolic and provocative � I couldn�t think of any other way to express my shock at the things President Obama said to Steve Kroft.

First, some context: I�ve been insistent that the fundamental problem for President Obama and Democratic leaders is a lack of moral authority, a pervasive sense among the electorate that they don�t have the courage of their convictions:

From earlier Daou Report:

Over the course of two years, President Obama and the Democratic Party achieved a remarkable feat: they passed significant, in some cases historic, legislation, yet managed not to tell the America public what they stood for and why they stood for it.

What�s worse, elected to be the anti-Bush, Barack Obama took page after page from the Bush playbook, on war, civil liberties, gay rights, executive power and women�s reproductive rights, among several other things. A perfect example is the shameful spiking of the BP spill, a craven political ploy that backfired terribly: as Democrats were getting trounced at the polls, BP was reporting a return to profitability.

No one can deny that the Obama White House and Democratic leadership racked up important accomplishments during the past two years, but voters don�t care what you do if they think you don�t stand for anything.

I keep hearing the retort that it�s all about jobs, that if the unemployment rate were 6%, Obama would be riding high and none of this would be an issue. I don�t buy it. All things being equal, when you cede your moral authority, when you telegraph to the public that you won�t stand your ground in defense of your principles, when you allow your opponent to step into the vacuum and frame your actions for you, you lose the connection to the people, you squander the ability to explain your actions, to buy time when things are going poorly, to earn trust during hard times.

In this case, Democrats collapsed in the face of an obstructionist Republican Party and the Tea Party, an overhyped, media-magnified phenomenon fueled by misinformation from think-tank generated soundbites disseminated by millionaire radio hosts and media moguls and stoked by wealthy conservative interests.

Had the White House laid out a set of core beliefs and values that they vowed to adhere to and that they framed their policies with, Democrats could have kept the American public on board with them through a tough economy. Instead, they flailed from inane attack to inane attack, never telling America what they stood for and why they stood for it, never demonstrating the strength of character and resoluteness essential to viable leadership.

UNFORTUNATELY:

The aftermath of the GOP�s midterm triumph perfectly illustrates this problem: Obama is falling over himself seeking compromise with Republicans, ceding to their frames, while Republican leaders say they will stick to their principles and try to destroy his presidency and legacy. Here�s how I put it a couple of days ago: If one side offers �compromise� and the other claims to stand firmly on principle, which one appears more principled to voters?

Astonishingly, in a 60 Minutes piece that just aired, Obama goes one step further. During the course of the entire interview he only once mentions having the courage of one�s convictions. And he attributes it not to himself or Democrats, but to Tom Coburn, a staunch conservative!

President Obama: �There are some sincere Republicans in the Senate like Tom Coburn, Oklahoma, who is about as conservative as they come, but a real friend of mine and somebody who has always had the courage of his convictions and not, you know, bringing pork projects back to Oklahoma. And it may be that that�s an example of where, on a bipartisan basis, we can work together to change practices in Washington that generate a lot of the distrust of government.�

Read the rest of these excerpts and tell me how you feel about the White House�s post-midterm strategy. From my perspective, this interview is a near-complete capitulation to rightwing framing and basically an apology for being a Democrat:

MORE of TRANSCRIPT of INTERVIEW on "60 Minutes" HERE at:

http://peterdaou.com/author/peter-daou/