Hail the Conquering Professor

[babylonsister]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/opinion/24dowd.html?hp

Hail the Conquering Professor

By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 23, 2010


The Democrats were walking around in a state of shock.

Holy cow, they were saying to themselves. We’re not total wimps! We don’t have to sit around and let ourselves be slapped silly by Republican bullies and Tea Party scaremongers. We can actually get something done if we suck it up and find a way to pull together.

One minute they were legislative losers, squabbling and scrambling for the off-ramps. The next they were history-makers, sharing chest bumps and goose bumps at the White House. How had the lofty president and the wily speaker suddenly steered them off Jimmy Carter Highway and onto F.D.R. Drive?

One gleeful and relieved White House aide called the bill-signing ceremony in the East Room, packed with Democratic lawmakers snapping pictures and acting like obstreperous children, “an Old Spice moment.”

“You could see it in their faces,” he said. “It was kind of like that Old Spice ad where the guy smacked himself on the cheeks and said, ‘Wow, that feels good!’ It was like they smacked themselves on the cheeks and said, ‘You are a member of Congress and now you can start doing things. Wow, that feels good!’ ”

snip//

Senator Al Franken, who had blown up at Axelrod after Obama held a televised session with Senate Democrats in February, arguing that the president wasn’t fighting hard enough or strategizing well enough, sent Axelrod a congratulatory note after the bill passed.

“You’re welcome,” Franken wrote. He added an asterisk: “Joke. I used to be in comedy.”:)

snip//

But at long last, when push came to shove, he shoved (and let Nancy push). He treated politics not as an intellectual exercise, but a political one. He realized that sometimes you can’t rise above it. You have to sink down into it. You have to stop being cerebral and get your hands dirty. You can fight fear with power.

The Chicago pol in the Oval has had to learn one of the great American truths: You’ve got to slap the bully in the face. He’s a consensus-building “warrior,” Axelrod boasted to Charlie Rose.

The president, who has been reading Edmund Morris’s “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt,” has always spoken with a soft voice. Now he’s wielded the big stick.

[peacebird]

1. got to love Al Franken! and HOPE that the Dems keep it up.

I've called my Rep to thank him - his staffer seemed genuinely suprised to hear kind words. Please call your reps offices to thank them if they voted for HCR too.

If your reps are repukes - call too. They need to understand that the tea-partiers - although very LOUD - are NOT the majority.

[Jennicut]

2. Fighting fear with power....not a big MoDo fan but she is right here.

Dems finally showed themselves they can accomplish something big and push around the Rethugs. Maybe they finally get they have a majority for the time being.