David Corn: Obama Should Play the Blame Game

[highplainsdem]

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/09/obama-should-play-blame-game

When Barack Obama takes the stage—without Greek columns—on Thursday night, at the conclusion of the Democratic convention in Charlotte, he will have some explaining to do. As many pundits and politicos, including strategists within the president's own camp, have pointed out, Obama must remind voters discouraged by the anemic recovery that the economy was in a free fall when he entered the White House, and he must contend that his actions prevented further collapse and reversed the trend from job loss to job gain (albeit less than rip-roaring job gain). Proclaiming accomplishments while simultaneously acknowledging the harsh reality of the moment will be difficult. But Obama has another tough assignment: blaming the other side.

-snip-

This they're-all-to-blame approach is popular in mainstream political analysis, though a close reading of the Post piece might cause a reader to tilt toward Obama's side. Another good example of this powerful media frame was the New York Times' epic account of the debt ceiling debacle, which could not resist the gravitational tug of moral equivalency, concluding, "Obama and [House Speaker John] Boehner have clung to their separate realities not just because it's useful to blame each other for the political dysfunction in Washington, but because neither wants to talk about just how far he was willing to go."

Obama and his crew need to break through the compelling it's-everyone's-fault narrative. If he is lumped in with the opposition when it comes to culpability, he loses, for he is the politician who pledged to do better. The Republicans need only to battle to a messy who-knows tie to bolster the argument that Obama fell short in this key mission. If voters can't sort out who's really accountable for Washington's ugliness, Obama will bear (or at least share) the burden of this failure. (And Mitt Romney will not.)

The president, though, has reality in his favor. In a noble effort, Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, earlier this year published a book, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, in which they insisted that Republicans are indeed the guilty party. These two guys are Washington mainstreamers and hardly quick or eager to issue such a severe verdict. Here's their summation:

-snip-

[ananda]

1. I like this part refuting the equivalency meme.

Obama and his crew need to break through the compelling it's-everyone's-fault narrative. If he is lumped in with the opposition when it comes to culpability, he loses, for he is the politician who pledged to do better. The Republicans need only to battle to a messy who-knows tie to bolster the argument that Obama fell short in this key mission. If voters can't sort out who's really accountable for Washington's ugliness, Obama will bear (or at least share) the burden of this failure. (And Mitt Romney will not.)

The president, though, has reality in his favor. In a noble effort, Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Norman Ornstein, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, earlier this year published a book, It's Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided With the New Politics of Extremism, in which they insisted that Republicans are indeed the guilty party. These two guys are Washington mainstreamers and hardly quick or eager to issue such a severe verdict. Here's their summation:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. In our past writings, we have criticized both parties when we believed it was warranted. Today, however, we have no choice but to acknowledge that the core of the problem lies with the Republican Party.

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country's challenges.

[highplainsdem]

5. I do, too.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. good article. I would also like him to equate it to the personal level. If you have ever

run up a credit card and all of a sudden, your balance is in the thousands....you know what it took to pay it off. You couldn't do it in months, it took years....but oh what a great feeling each month to see it get better

[Dkc05]

3. fuck ya blame them tge raped us and enslaved us.

We need to take away their ill gotten gains. Tax them at 75% get the deficit under control. If you make new than 50,000 then you need to pony up and pay your fair share. Make 250,000 or more then pay 50% to help our government support those who need help. Over 500,000 tax them 75%. They will never miss it and we can fix or budget issues. Everybody has to sacrifice for the good of their neighbor.

[reformist2]

4. Obama should make a pitch to voters, to vote for Dems up and down the ballot.

He should scold the voters (but not too strongly): Vote for me if you want change, but don't forget - you also have to vote the rest of my team to Congress if you want me to get anything done!