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White House Uses Official Blog To Lash Out At Shelby
Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and President Obama
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The administration today used the official White House blog to lash out at Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), who, as we reported today, has put a hold on President Obama's nominations in order to get two big projects done in his home state.
"This is just the latest example of this kind opposition for opposition's sake that the President talked about earlier this week," wrote White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer. "This strategy of obstruction is preventing qualified people from doing their jobs on behalf of the American people and it's preventing real work from getting done in Washington."
"Every minute spent needlessly blocking noncontroversial nominees, many of whom go on to be confirmed by 70 or more votes or by voice vote (nine of the President's nominees so far), is a minute not spent on the issues that matter to American families," he continued.
Earlier today, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs called the holds "silliness."
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Walter Mitty
February 5, 2010 2:23 PM
Oooooo a sternly worded letter that nobody will read.
If you want to control the narrative you need to get on television to push your narrative. GOP knows this, Dems seemingly are oblivious.
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Clear
February 6, 2010 1:56 AM in reply to Walter Mitty
You read it.
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sunnysteve
February 5, 2010 2:23 PM
Smart. Focus on what he is doing. Don't get into a debate about his stated reasons for doing it.
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Powkat
February 5, 2010 2:28 PM
Get it into Politico, ABC, CBS MSNBC, CNN. They it might have some effect.
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mans_best_friend
February 5, 2010 2:47 PM
If you want to get the media's attention, call his bluff. Bring the nominees up for a vote and call cloture votes if necessary. Do it for one after the other. It won't take long before the spectacle will capture the media's attention. The absolute LAST thing Shelby wants is for attention to be called to these shenanigans.
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mcc
February 5, 2010 2:56 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Wouldn't that require shutting down the Senate for 70 days, since you'd need a 24 hour on each individual cloture vote?
Wouldn't shutting down the Senate for 70 days be a huge success for the GOP, given their entire agenda is delay at this point anyway?
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mans_best_friend
February 5, 2010 3:42 PM in reply to mcc
Do you really think they'd hold out for 70 days? After a week the media would be all over this, and that's the absolute last thing Shelby wants. He'll come of looking as craven as...well...as he is. He can only get away with this if it's kept in the dark.
Call his bluff.
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mcc
February 5, 2010 3:51 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Do you really think they'd hold out for 70 days
Hell yes
How long did they hold out on delaying, say, the Baucus committee negotiations?
What is the advantage from their perspective to give in, ever?
It might hurt them in the long run, but I think they'd hold out. And if they hold out, they hurt us, too.
The bigger question to my mind is whether, if this is indeed how it works, the Democrats would hold out-- whether they'd be willing to forgo the weekends, recesses etc that would be necessary for this to take 70 days and not 300. And remember you only need to delay for, say, one week, or two weeks to derail major Democratic initiatives, since the Dems want to do so much and things are being cut so close.
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mans_best_friend
February 5, 2010 4:13 PM in reply to mcc
I disagree. The media would eat this up the same way they did the government shutdowns that Gingrich&Co. engineered in 1995. The Republicans wouldn't be able to stand having their asses hanging out for very long. They can only get away with this stuff if it's done in the shadows. Shine a bright light on them and they skitter away like cockroaches.
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OhioGuy
February 5, 2010 4:24 PM in reply to mans_best_friend
Isn't all that's required for Shelby to hold out? The rest of the Republicans can wash their hands of it and even vote for cloture, but it will still waste 70 days.
I have to wonder if Biden can issue an opinion cancelling the 24 hour wait as being against the spirit of the Senate rules. We're not even talking about a minority blocking Senate action, but about a single Senator shutting down government by abusing the rules on debate time.
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czony
February 5, 2010 3:43 PM
Close redstone move it to a blue state.
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Philv
February 5, 2010 4:38 PM
Dammit no one is going to care what the official White House blog says and I bet the percentage of people in this country who know who Dan Pfeiffer is is minuscule. Obama needs to be the one carrying this message. Only way to get people to pay attention.
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jthdane
February 5, 2010 6:47 PM in reply to Philv
Oh, but that wouldn't be bipartisan
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philogratis
February 5, 2010 8:02 PM
If you want to impact the news cycle, you don't do a media blitz on Friday afternoon. That's when you release stories that you don't want people to pay attention to. Wait til Sunday, then blanket the morning shows (hardly anybody watches but pundits, but it's a good way to drive the week's newscycle), and Obama should give a speech somewhere and say something about it. I agree. Josh Marshall seems to have already abandoned hope that the White House will attack effectively, but I don't understand why. It was just a week ago that Obama hit a messaging home-run at the Republican Retreat (on a Friday, true, but we all understand that was an extraordinary event). That's not the only sign that the White House has started to take their messaging problem seriously. Plouffe is back in the War Room, they're pushing back hard on Abdulmatulahab, Obama is giving regular speeches, and incorporating ridicule against congressional republicans in almost every one (ridicule is a double edged sword, but Republicans have tended to use this framing more successfully than democrats). The White House has even been harping on obstructionism, while the unfortunate thing that happened last year was totally abandoning framing Republicans as obstructionists. I think the real, unfortunate, and probably unsolvable problem at that time was that too many Democratic senators (more than 10) would rather side with the Republicans than tolerate any threat to their countermajoritorian privileges. Reid looked at his caucus, realized his limitations, and did has darndest to get 60 votes. You may not like the process or the product, but he pulled it off.
Now we shall see if the threat of utter political ruin is enough to drive 51 Democratic Senators into taking controversial steps to regain majority rule. I'm not confident, but I think it's possible.
I think what Obama is up to is to push a jobs bill, as well as bringing up the Rep. Ryan shadow budget to the floor in order to force the GOP into some tough votes. The three weeks will be used to raise process arguments (thank you Sen. Shelby) and pound on populist themes. The hope, the dream, is that even if the Republicans sink the jobs bill with an unrelenting filibuster, the public will be primed and Senate Dems will be desperate enough to pass the darn frickin hoozit HCR bill. It's Freedom or Death for the Democratic majority.
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unionave
February 6, 2010 9:25 AM
When an election is called in England the whole government goes home and can only go back if the people approve of them as the government the electorate wants . Here in our nation our elections are staggered so that there is always some left over from tha last gang to teach the new arrivals the old tricks . This type of system also helps keep the electorate divided and confused . What our government and Wall Street fears the most is a unified electorate because with a divided electorate they are the government and with a unified electorate we are the government that can not be bought . As things are now and with the recent S Court ruling the law makers of our government do not fear the electorate . What it also says about our electorate is many of us are very gullible and can be persuaded to enjoy our own neck tie party . Unless we can ALL realize that great damage has been done to our way of life by those that designed this mess for their own profit we will continue to suffer the consequences .
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