You just wish they’d stop. Take a morning to think about it. Go talk to some congressmen. Go out to a few state party offices. Watch a day of Fox News. Learn something. But no, David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs — certainly reflecting the president’s mindset — seem incapable of self-reflection. So they take to MSNBC (yeah, MSNBC, because far be it for them to venture from their cocoon) to insist that nothing has changed:
“There are messages here, we hear those messages but there is a tendency in this town … to over blow things even beyond their importance,” said David Axelrod, a top adviser to President Obama, on MSNBC’s “Daily Rundown.”
Axelrod signaled that the White House is not giving up on health-care reform.
“He believes there is a real crisis,” Axelrod said. “He believes we have to deal with that crisis.”
“We also have to take into account what voters were saying yesterday. … We will take that into account and then decide how to move forward,” Axelrod said.
“But it’s not an option to walk away from a problem that’s only going to get worse.”
The only concession they would make is that there’s “anger” out there. Directed at them, of course. But they left that part out. As comical as conservatives might find this cluelessness, imagine what fellow Democrats are whispering to one another: “Do they really not get it?” “This is for show, right?” There must be a fair amount of panic among the rank and file.
The White House duo contend that the anger isn’t related to their enormously unpopular health-care bill but to the economy. That of course raises two problems (aside from the fact that it isn’t true). First, as Ben Smith notes, that new spin has tripped over the old spin: “They seem to have abandoned — or at least didn’t mention — the notion that fixing the health care system is related to fixing the economy.” And second, the economy is their responsibility, and as authors of a failed stimulus plan, that excuse really doesn’t help their cause in the long run.
You wonder just how oblivious they can be at the White House. After a few days of this, perhaps the light will dawn and they’ll realize how daft they sound denying reality and pretending they have a majority (either in Congress or the country) to continue full steam ahead. Maybe Obama needs to bring this to a vote and have his signature bill voted down. Or maybe he needs to lose the House and/or Senate in November before he wakes up. Then again, maybe being president isn’t all he thought it would be, and he’s content merely to have won and served one term. That’s sure how he’s behaving.
