Jennifer Rubin: No Christmas cheer for Joe Manchin. What did he expect?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/20/manchin-bashed-after-bbb-announcement/
What did Sen. Joe Manchin III expect? After hanging the White House out to dry with his repudiation of Build Back Better (announced on Fox News, no less), the West Virginia Democrat surely could not have expected cheers from his party. It is quite possible, however, that he did not anticipate the instantaneous, united and furious reaction from the White House, Democratic congressional leaders, and the progressive and moderate wings of both chambers.
Virtually no Democrat came to Manchin’s defense on Sunday after the White House accused him of double-crossing President Biden. (As White House press secretary Jen Psaki put it, Manchin’s announcement was “a sudden and inexplicable reversal in his position, and a breach of his commitments to the President and the Senator’s colleagues in the House and Senate.”) Maybe Manchin, who has been treated with kid gloves by his former Senate colleague in the Oval Office, did not imagine the White House would release a blow-by-blow account of the negotiations, going so far as to mention Manchin had put his recent proposal in writing.
And perhaps Manchin expected moderates in the House and Senate to ride to his defense. Instead, prominent moderates, including Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.) and Sen. Christopher A. Coons (D-Del.), expressed shock and dismay. After all, Democratic moderates had gone out on a limb to accommodate Manchin’s demands, allowing him to practically write the energy provisions of the bill. He then made them look like fools, offering up Republican talking points to criticize them as fiscally irresponsible.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) released a frosty statement on Sunday, not even deigning to mention Manchin by name. “For weeks, we have had House-Senate-White House agreement on the fundamental framework of Build Back Better,” she declared, essentially backing up the White House’s account of Manchin’s betrayal.
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= new reply since forum marked as read
His reaching around due legislative process to try and govern from TV (and RW Fox no less) is probably the dumbest political move I've seen a Democratic politician take in many years.
He is going to pay for this in the long run. No matter if he is shamed back to the table...and I hope he is, but it won't matter as his reputation as a politician is in tatters now.
If events allow those who support true democracy to write history, it will not be kind to Joe Manchin.
(Not smart economically either...he has single handedly caused the USA to probably become poorer in 2022 as indicated by Goldman Sacks no less...and this WILL affect the price the little people will be able to pay for coal. It will probably mean his coal companies will lose more in the long run then he has received in graft money due to this stupid dickish move.)
What a putz.
