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Republican Sens. John McCain and John Thune
A month ago today, the Wall Street Journal reported on the collapse of the fiscal talks, and included some behind-the-scenes anecdotes about the hostilities between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. According to the piece, Obama "told Mr. Boehner that if the sides didn't reach agreement, he would use his inaugural address and his State of the Union speech to tell the country the Republicans were at fault."
We now know, of course, that didn't happen. Not only was a fiscal agreement reached on Jan. 1, but the word "Republican" did not appear in the president's second inaugural.
That said, Obama nevertheless presented an ambitious and progressive vision, which is entirely incompatible with a radicalized Republican approach to governance. It doesn't come as too big a surprise, then, that some GOP lawmakers weren't especially pleased with what they heard.
"I would have liked to have seen some outreach," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential race. "This is the eighth [inauguration] that I've been to and always there's been a portion of the speech where [the president says] 'I reach out my hand because we need to work together.' That wasn't in this speech."
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a member of leadership, said the speech was "mostly 30,000-foot stuff" that did not extend any olive branches to the GOP.
"It did seem that he wasn't doing the kind of outreach that he needs to do if he wants to get things accomplished in a second term," Thune said. "We'll see how it's received."
So, let me get this straight. Republicans spent Obama's first term on a scorched-earth campaign, hoping to destroy his presidency and nearly everything he proposed. GOP leaders met privately exactly four years ago yesterday to plot their comeback by obstructing the president wherever possible, and refusing to compromise with Obama on literally anything, even when he embraced Republican ideas -- and then they executed that plot without hesitation or shame.
After Obama received another endorsement from the American electorate, members of the shrinking Senate minority heard the president offer a robust defense of his governing vision, and their first reaction is ... it lacked "outreach" to the other side?
Seriously?
In fairness, I should note that other Republicans were more gracious and appreciated the president's frequent references to working together.
"I do come away with hope, as long as from the bully pulpit, he speaks the same way in the days ahead as he did today," said Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa.). [...]
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) said that the White House would need to reach out to Republicans in Congress if the challenges of the debt and deficit were actually going to get addressed.
"The part I liked is when he emphasized working together -- that's what we need," Hoeven said. [...]
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the longest-serving GOP senator, said there were certainly things he differed with in the speech, but that overall he found a positive message. "It was a together agenda as far as I can see," Hatch said.
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@ McCain:
/facepalm
When people around caged animals scream is often around the primates when the crowd is being pelted with feces. From the Monkeyland site, there is further information:
It is said the GOP is evolving, but the directionality is not clear at this point.
Perfect!!
John McCain's nose needs to make the acquaintance of a Louisville Slugger, followed by the rest of his face as he becomes "good Republican."
John McCain is really acting like a bent-out, losing candidate, old white man-republican and needs to retire. Get over it Senator! Your campaign was over 4 years ago..time to move on!
McCain is taking Firesign Theater's advice: Forward! Into the past.
"I'm watching you, temporary me, with my Third Eye." -- Nick Danger. Thanks for the blast from the past!
I'm surprised that none of the usual suspects have shown up yet to throw a lot of bull**** defending McCain and Thune. Maybe the trolls are still infesting the gun-related threads. RobbyWobby specifically is probably fixated on the "Gun Appreciation Day" thread because he don't get no respect from me (and he never will).
'Evenin', Entropy -- The best way to decrease entropy from this quasi-closed system of MaddowBlog is to adiabatically add energy by formally ignoring trolls. The system can exhibit major positive shifts in equilibrium without energy loss.
Translation: who needz trolls when the residents are feeling this good?
What a day. What a DAY!
It is wrong to ignore malicious people and allow them to spread their poison unhindered.
Mmmm. Well...
Even when they're doing it for the express purposes of (1) enraging us, and (2) having us spend energy uselessly trying to engage them as if they were rational beings?
My sense is that responding to them is just opening the duct for that poison to flow in. Ignoring them gives them no chance to bedevil sensible folk. It's not like that little 'popgun' is interested in intellectually honest debate, right?
The guy that picked whazzername..right?
That strikes me as very naive. Are you really under the impression that they can do no harm if "nice" people ignore them? Sorry, but human history shows the danger of ignoring people who actively seek to do wrong.
but the word "Republican" did not appear in the president's second inaugural
...And with the dissolution of the Hastart Rule, the GOP seems destined to be absent from most of his second term. Sure, they'll weep and wail, but nothing that the TPers vote for will become law. Again.
When Republicans start considering themselves part of "We the People" instead of "We against Obama", maybe then they will finally realize they were included in President Obama's second inaugural address.
Indeed, they want to be treated as something 'special'?
I do not think he said Democrat either. He did say this is a republic.
There; fixed it for you, Steve.
Obama and the Democrats would have liked to have seen some outreach too...any single day of the last four years.
When someone stretches out their hand to you, and you consistently try to stab them in it, bitching that they don't do it again? Not exactly realistic.
Republicans must think Obama is unable to learn. Four years, and he has to have learned. Reap what you sew, Republicans.
You could probably find them at the Caucus Room, planning their
strategy to destroy Obama's second term... since the first term
strategy worked out so well for them...
But don't anyone tell McConnell... he's figuring out some way,
ANY way, to keep Obama from becoming a three term President...
It would be nice if we could leave the GOP out of the government entirely, but largely ignoring them in the inaugural speech and stating that he's prepared to move on without them is about the best we can do for now.
On Faux News the other day, the panelists were complaining that Obama is taking a harsher, more contentious tone than he did before his re-election. GOOD. He spent almost all of the first term trying to be inclusive and bipartisan. He tried far too hard (and with far too little success) to reach agreements with them. This mainly meant kowtowing and capitulating to the Republicans.
Let's hope he learned something. If Republicans want him to "reach out" to them, they can start acting like responsible partners in governing America.
what the repubs have to do is stop reacting with "Ewww a black man almost touched me" when President Obama reaches out to them.
John McCain, frankly, must have been coming off a four-martini lunch when he said this. I mean, really---the GOP has clearly demonstrated that they have NO INTENTION of "working with" President Obama, to the point where they will repudiate their own ideas if the President were to adopt them.
IMO, somewhere in those pointy heads, they've come to terms with the fact that Romney/Ryan lost the election...but they can still do everything they can to make the President look bad.
Meanwhile, after spending most of his first term getting "punked" by GOP leaders, it looks like President Obama has learned his lesson---and from a career standpoint now has nothing to lose from rubbing those leaders' nose in it whenever possible.
McConnell, Cantor, Issa, etc. WANTED to serve up political hardball. It's the other guy's turn to pitch, don't whine when he plays by YOUR rules.
Just sayin'.
And, they can start with an APOLOGY to the President, for how they behaved toward him AND their constituents, during President Obama's FIRST TERM!
Here's a start: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7mIy97_rlo
Next (or first) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK_mqgVOLU4
When they stop trying to s**** over the rest of us we can discuss out reach.
In the mean time they're not worth much.
Let them go cry in their beer.
However, Boehner will tell you he prefers merlot. :-)
Bo(eh)ner prefers just about anything with alcohol in it... the greater the proof the better he likes it...
thinking the old republicans butts are still chapped! or is that their lips?
LOL, there seems to be an old guard feel to this bitterness.
guess that's the Republican Guard.
"Seriously/?"
That was my reaction too.
Obama got the GOP to prove one thing to the American people...they don't belong in democratic government. Watch them now try to change or burn their "uniforms" to avoid being accused of what and who they've been.
haven't you heard, it's not their message that needs changing, it's the presentation. if they can just present the case that we all need to make the rich richer, the women more subservient, the gays more closeted and the minorities put back in their place America would just be swell.
very retrofail
Tell you what, GOP. Once you've gone 6 months without symbolically repealing Obamacare, interfering with women's health concerns, sending the country over the cliff for the benefit of the rich and detriment to the poor, intimidating voters, and being overall jackasses, then we'll mention you in an important address. Maybe.
does overall jackassery include rigging the electoral college through state law-mandering? or is that a separate category?
Every time I see or hear that particular message of vote gerrymandering...I keep hearing that robot in "Lost in Space"...waving his arms and saying "Danger, danger Will Robinson, danger"...Either our elections are in danger of being really corrupted by the corporate/Koch enterprises...or I used to watch too much tv...or both...
You're absolutely right. The Gerrymander is the Republicans' only option to remain in politics now, and they are using it with a vengeance. Too long to explain in this post and anyway most people here know all about it----but the Gerrymander is how the MINORITY RULES, and that's what the Republicans are planning right now. They are starting in Virginia----they started, today.
Since they regard themselves as the sole true representatives of America, even when they lose elections they expect to be treated as the winners.
winners, whiners, who can tell?
I am old, and my mind must be slipping; will someone please remind me of the many instances of John McCain's outreach?
I'm old and have a slipping mind too because I cannot for the life of me remember what is a "Republican."
Perhaps the name "Eisenhower" comes to mind.
He covered this in his first inaugural: he said he'd reach out his hand if they'll unclench their fists.
Okay, yeah, some people thought he was talking exclusively about foreign tyrants when he said that . . .
This is the same McCain who nominated Sarah Palin for VPOTUS, right? Does he really think anyone takes him seriously anymore?
yes.
You mean there's something in McCain to take seriously?
no.
When the GOP sent their NRA attack dogs out to publicly threaten the safety of his daughters, the climate changed from conciliatory to frosty. You wonder at how these arrogant old, rich white men could have misplayed their already weak hand this badly.
When you reach your hand out in friendship and pull back a stump it's time to stop reaching out. Hopefully over the last four years the President has learned that.
When he mentioned "name calling", I was really hoping he'd pause and look at John Boehner with a silent F-bomb.
That's not President Obama's style; he is a gentleman, unlike Mr. Boehner.
It is almost 5:00 on the East Coast and do we know where the Republicans are? Will they be plotting again as they did in 2009 at the Caucus Room, or have they found a new location to host their evening of treachery.
Has anyone checked the men's room at the Watergate hotel?
Well if they do meet tonight, the first course for their meal should be crow. Their plan didn't work. I have to give credit to this to Ed Shulz I heard him say this on the broadcast.
Poor babies. Where's Mitch McConnell, in his room with the door locked and the stereo blasting?
Yeah! Probably Pat Boone!
Mitch the Witch is busy sending out e-mail telling his suckers that the "gun grabbers" are coming to take away their penis enlargers.
Not their penis enlargers... their penis SUBSTITUTES... No penis enlarger could possibly work on Mitch the Witch or Crying Johnny Bo(eh)ner...
These GOP folk are nice people but really not much into logic.
You're working with somebody for four years and he wants to get you involved with some sort of teamwork philosophy but all you can do is say "No" to everything he puts forward and by some twisted logic it is his fault that things either never get done or are pushed to the very last minute.
McCain should go on a comedy tour when he retires from the Senate.
He's been doing comedy practically every Sunday for the past four years.
What about Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican from Tennessee? I seem to remember he was on the program.
There may be one or two moderate, cooperative Republicans left, but I wouldn't be holding my breath....you notice that a number of them are not running for office again......retiring, as it were: Olympia Snow, Susan Collins, etc.
Ignore the GOP. They've punched the GOP self-destruct button and deserve what they get.
The Rs will say "they didn't let us coronate Rmoney instead".
The President dissed us by saying name calling is not reasoned discourse. He had too many black people in the inaugural. Unfair! Waaaaaaahhhhh!
Unless we get what we want, the Ds are at fault. The Ds won a big victory, but we lost, so we should get everything our way to be bipartisan!… huh?
snark off
Yes, ignore them. They cannot grasp the facts, always trying to get everything their way.
They thought a presidential election could be won by catering to caucasian males and demonizing everyone else. Why should anyone listen to their b.s. (except to know your opponent)?
The President reached out to all Americans...that whole "We the people" thing...you know, the government of and by and for the people...
Alas, the POG's have rejected that, so feel left out.
Joe Scarborough spent his morning bashing Obama for not socializing enough with Congress. He also brought up when yesterday, Obama said to his daughters after taking his oath, "I did it" obviously referring to four years ago when both he and Chief Justice Roberts flubbed it. Scarborough preceded his comment with, "I don't know if I should bring this up" to which I would have replied, "If you question saying something... then don't."
Scarborough sometimes runs out of "talking points" - then he just bashes Obama for not being "good ole boy" enough.
Seems as if I heard he invited the members of the Congress to a screening of Lincoln at the White House and none of Republicans accepted. He has also invited a number of them, including John Boehner, to State Dinners at the White House (recently, the one for Hamid Karzai), to which they did not respond nor did they attend.
This kind of treatment tends to make one a little suspicious of their proclaimed "friendship" outreach.
The azzholes think they're heros...but it's still an 0, either way.
Is that what they mean by "leading"? More social parties? I thought they were saying early on the President and First Lady had too many parties?
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0209/18635.html
Don't know how many Rs actually attended these many parties. But it's not that they were not invited.
These people want you to just ignore the election results and do things their way, then accuse the Ds of anything that might sound good. The Rs vowing to undermine the President are responsible for this toxic environment (and possibly a slower recovery).
Being proud of rigging things to that end is shameful.
How fitting that on the day we celebrate the birth of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that President Barack Obama is sworn in for his second term as the first African-American President. People - this is wonderful progress. Anyone with even a modicum of a sense of history has to respect what this Country has been able to do since the emancipation proclamation. And yes, I know it took the 13th amendment to legally give blacks their freedom. There were approximately 600,000 deaths during the Civil War. In percentages - in today's population, that would equal 6 million people who died for the idea the we are a Nation - 'United we stand, divided we fall". The inauguration felt truly American - a proud Nation, a grateful Nation for all of the fallen soldiers past, and for the soldiers who protect us today. For those who agree with me in the inherit dignity and worth of every person, then join me in congratulating President Obama and congratulating Americans for rising above our racial divide and electing the best person for the job. This is change, people; this is hope, people; this is progress; this is our United States of America! Give peace a chance!
"We the people" means all citizens of the USA!