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Mark Halperin fresh off his suspension from MSNBC is still pumping his bipartisan right-wing beltway fetishism into the ozone. He must have a lot of pent up High Villager knowledge to impart upon us. He believes Obama should have been bowing down to Rep. John Boehner's wants and needs yet again leading up to his jobs speech so that they could come together in some magical beltway meeting of the minds, meld them into one and create a real common ground for job creation. Seriously. This man is hired as a top gun political guru and supposedly observes the working of Washington, DC. Is this man smoking embalming fluids?
Mark Halperin is a dick . ..or a fool anyway. Here he is vomiting up the latest beltway CW on the jobs speech on Hardball today:
Matthews: Should Obama offer up something in the middle that the Republicans will at least nibble at or should he offer up something so broad and "New Deal" that they'll obviously reject it but the American people on the Democrats' side will love it. What should he do?
Halperin: Chris, I think he should do whatever is most likely to create jobs. And my sense is, which has been true all year, is the thing that is most likely to create jobs is finding common ground between John Boehner and Barack Obama.
I think the way the speech has been led up to, the things that are likely to be in the speech, the Republicans' pre-reaction to what's going to be in the speech all suggest that this speech, even if it's brilliantly delivered is not going to produce the kind of bipartisanship that is required to get something approved by John Boehner, Harry Reid and Barack Obama.
Just what does Mark Halperin think that John Boehner wants to do to create jobs? I know! Let's eliminate all corporate income taxes. Would that do it? No, probably not. We'll need something more than that. How about completely disbanding the EPA and firing all public employees? No? Right, Republicans are going to need a little bit more than that. The president literally falling on Ulysses S Grant's sword in the oval office in a prime time speech would certainly be a dramatic capitulation. Would that help? I didn't think so.
Have you ever heard anything more vacuous? Did he take a trip to mars during his MSNBC suspension and miss the whole debt ceiling debacle? Good lord. Barack Obama has been more than willing to give the Republicans everything they want no matter how much it hurts the economy or his own Party. It would be impossible for any President to be more accommodating to the opposition without actually joining them. And they still won't take yes for an answer.
But Halperin doesn't see it that way. When Matthews said that he was proposing that Obama set forth a bipartisan jobs plan that would be rejected, Halperin robotically replied:
I think they should have been consulting with the Republicans all along and I don't think it's too late. But to go in and give the speech that it seems he's going to give, offering up new spending, massive spending proposals with nothing on the other side that the Republicans could say was a trade off that would be worth taking for them, again is going to lead to the kind of gridlock and partisan bickering that isn't going to solve the problem.
If the president is more concerned with creating jobs than his reelection, and he should be, the way he's approached this and the way he's headed is not going to produce anything that will be approved by John Boehner and Harry Reid and by Barack Obama. And if the federal government is going to create jobs those guys all have to be on board.
I think the question is, "is Mark Halperin a human or a robot, programmed to say exactly the same thing no matter what the circumstances?" Inquiring minds and all that.
Jonathan Alter, a lefty Villager himself does at least call Halperin's thoughts ridiculous.
MATTHEWS: Well, that`s a great question I haven`t thought about even getting to.
But let`s get to it with you, Jon. Should the president engage in now -- he`s got a couple days now -- engage in a courtship where he goes up to the Hill through his emissaries, through Bill Daley or whoever else and Jack Lew, and tries figure out the common ground or? Or will that just make him just give away the game?
JONATHAN ALTER, NBC NEWS CONTRIBUTING CORRESPONDENT: Been there, done that, fool`s errand.
You know, burn me once -- you know the expressions.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
ALTER: At this point, they`re not going to cooperate. The Republicans, like the Democrats, are playing for the 2012 election. So what this speech should do is to tee up the choice for the American people. And it`s an extraordinarily important one about what they think the government`s role should be in creating jobs.
And we know we have seen Romney`s proposals. There are some good ones in there. There are some good ideas that he has. And some of what the president will talk about, some of these tax cuts, will parallel what the Republicans want to do.
So it may be that they can find some common ground, but he has to lay out a Democratic vision of what government`s responsibility is, and that includes putting people to work immediately. You know, Chris, in 1933, when Roosevelt became president, he said, I want 250,000 young people working in the national parks by summer, three months later. And he did it. He got it done.
MATTHEWS: Yes, I agree. I agree. OK. (CROSSTALK)
ALTER: In other words, the president can at least lay that out in terms of what he thinks the government`s responsibility is to help people who are jobless. It`s a philosophical difference that has to be heightened and illuminated in this speech.
Back to Digby:
Matthews suggested that perhaps the president could use the populist tone but just lay out some "small potatoes" with a date certain to get it done --- like the payroll tax extension, extending unemployment benefits and maybe some small infrastructure projects. Halperin replied that this sort of tone just won't work with the Republicans, although he did admit that he hadn't a clue about what would.
Then they just babbled on about how the whole thing was hopeless and Matthews ended with a good point about the idea of setting down some specific dates for the Republicans to meet on jobs:
It beats spending the next three months watching this Super Committee decide what to cut. Boy what a loser.
All hail the Super Committee! Anyway, if only President Obama would heed some of those words and stop trying to play for independent voters, but it appears his political team will not budge. This is simple. Democrats believe the government can be used for good and Republicans want you to believe government is bad so that they can ravish the land and all its peoples unhindered.
