President Obama: Please proceed, Senator McConnell (updated w/ video)

[sheshe2]

He made a point of saying that he looks forward to hearing from McConnell and Boehner on what their agenda for Congress will be. And that he's willing to work on those areas where they can agree.

While some will undoubtably view this as pre-capitulation, its actually an amazing power play as well as a reprisal of conciliatory rhetoric as a ruthless strategy.

One way to deal with that kind of bad-faith opposition is to draw the person in, treat them as if they were operating in good faith, and draw them into a conversation about how they actually would solve the problem. If they have nothing, it shows. And that's not a tactic of bipartisan Washington idealists -- it's a hard-nosed tactic of community organizers, who are acutely aware of power and conflict.

Over the last 6 years, Minority Leader McConnell has been able to embrace a "post-policy" approach focused on total obstruction. Now that Republicans control both chambers of Congress, President Obama is basically saying "puts your cards on the table and let's see what you've got."

Read More: http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2014/11/president-obama-please-proceed-senator.html

[Scuba]

1. We won't like what they've got. The question is how much of it will Obama approve?

[IggyPops]

2. The very worst strategy is...

...to underestimate your opposition. If you think McConnell is some backwoods moron, you are very much mistaken.

[sheshe2]

3. Really? Are you saying Obama is underestimating McConnell?

Lol~ Or are you saying that McConnell is underestimating Obama?

As for what I think of Mitch. He is a bought and paid for politician, who is only in it for the power and money at bequest of his rich friends to make them richer. He doesn't give a damn about Kentucky!

Have fun here at DU.

[IggyPops]

4. You spent much of your opening words...

...praising Obama as an unusually canny strategist, even calling his own words 'amazing'. I'm not surprised that you are so easily amazed but you underestimate the opposition if you project it onto them. In order to beat the GOP, we have to understand it.

[sheshe2]

6. First of all Iggy, those were not my words.

I posted an Op with a link to a BLOG, you read it correct? That's not my blog, though I love what she has to say.

Noooo, I don't underestimate that ugly man at all~Neither does this President

When did McConnell say he wanted to make Obama a ‘one-term president’?
Posted by Glenn Kessler at 06:00 AM ET, 09/25/2012

“When I first came into office, the head of the Senate Republicans said, ‘my number one priority is making sure president Obama’s a one-term president.’ Now, after the election, either he will have succeeded in that goal or he will have failed at that goal.”
— President Obama, interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” recorded on Sept. 12, 2012, and aired on Sept. 23

“It was no surprise, because the senator from Kentucky, who just spoke, announced at the beginning, four years ago, exactly what his strategy would be. He said, his number-one goal was to make sure that Barack Obama was a one-term president.”
— Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), on the Senate floor, Sept. 21, 2012

“Ed Rendell, who has criticized the president (objecting, for example, to the Obama campaign's attack on private equity), also argues that Obama has been constrained by an unprecedented obduracy in his Republican opposition. ‘I can't ever recall a newly elected president being faced with the leader of the other party's caucus saying “Our No. 1 priority is to make this president a one-term president,”’ says Rendell, citing the remark made by Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, that exemplified the fierce partisanship that has attended Obama's tenure. ‘That McConnell would say that in the first nine months of Barack Obama's tenure is absolutely stunning, disgraceful, disgusting — you name the term.’”

Read More http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/when-did-mcconnell-say-he-wanted-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president/2012/09/24/79fd5cd8-0696-11e2-afff-d6c7f20a83bf_blog.html

[IggyPops]

8. Again, if you think Obama...

...is demonstrating incredible skill and if you think McConnell will fall for it, you're part of the problem instead of the solution. I don't actually hate Republicans and I assume that's the single biggest difference between myself and many of the commenters here. I understand they (Repubs) care about the country just as much as we do, we simply disagree how to go about fixing what both sides recognize are problems. For example, affordable health care is a serious issue. Is there compromise? Hard to say (and particularly hard after a drubbing like this one) but progress won't be achieved viewing as flat-footed a politician as Obama as some genius nor his Republican opposition as easily fooled by a basic strategy as one outlined in the description you've provided, whoever wrote the words.

[sheshe2]

9. Really? The GO'efingP does not care for this country at all!

I don't actually hate Republicans and I assume that's the single biggest difference between myself and many of the commenters here. I understand they (Repubs) care about the country just as much as we do, we simply disagree how to go about fixing what both sides recognize are problems.

You do know that when you joined 4 hours ago that this was Democratic Underground, correct?

[IggyPops]

12. Of course.

I joined knowing full well that I'd be spending most of my time here laughing at folks like you who can't spend 30 seconds absorbing why she just got her political a** handed to her. I'm not a progressive, I'm a pragmatist. I have a real job and work with real folks who actually disagree with me politically. And I know they're not the boogeymen, they're not fascists, they're not thugs. An urban provincial like yourself will never understand because your insecurity will never allow that those who disagree with you are human.

Hopey-changey doesn't last long, honey. You actually have to know how to govern, to lead.

[realFedUp]

5. Late in the series

It's more than disappointing and a real question why this administration wasn't more vocally pro-active about its good record before this election. There's a question about why O didn't sign an immigration bill executively. There's a question why he worked to compromise w the pinheads in Republican office all these years. He'll be known as the first black president and to the ones who follow, some of his record but so far, it won't really matter to most Americans. I hope he'll grow some balls before he retires to Rancho Mirage in Thunderbird Cove.
I also hope some of the old Dem strategists like Leahy and Shrum finally retire.

[Deny and Shred]

7. Republicans now control the agenda

They can put all sorts of politically-charged bills on his desk and dare him to veto it - obstructing with unacceptably radical bills. After all, Obama can be painted as 'the President that signed' whatever they have in mind.

Though the GOP is largely bereft of ideas that would actually help We the People, they are very good at crafting bills that sound like Freedom/Eagle/Truck/Flag/Jesus/Murica, yet are still flaming turds. Nobody wants to be seen as favoring a Death Tax or opposing Infinite Justice.

Let's hope he and the Congressional minority do veto & obstruct. The alternative could be crippling.

[world wide wally]

10. So, who will be responsible for either defaulting on our debt or closing down the government

next time?

[czarjak]

11. Give em hell,...

Make em put their mouth where their money is!