Face The Nation: Obama's First Task Is Restoring Credibility
By Nicole Belle Sunday Dec 14, 2008 6:30pm
Bob Schieffer's closing tells us what we already know: the country does not trust politicians any more to make things better for the citizenry. However, for all of its self-evident truth, it is frustrating to hear him take such a passive stance in not pinpointing that this impotent lip service to public good is as much a hallmark of Republican politics as union busting, corporatism and privatization. That doesn't absolve the Democratic Party, who have been frustratingly as impotent as the Repubs, but in a different, blinded battered spouse kind of way.
(T)his is an observation on how ineffectual both Congress and the administration have become.
Years of political spin, rosy reports that never seem to match the pictures on television (remember "Brownie, you've done a heck of a job"), and endless partisan turf wars have left the country cynical and suspicious of everything Washington says and does.
So Washington is unable to generate the political will to do anything.
Government's credibility has sunk so low that the pronouncements - no matter how dire - from the lame duck President and the even more unpopular Congress go unheeded, if not unheard.
The credibility of Washington was destroyed by the Bush White House (backed by their Republican colleagues in Congress) that Iraq had nuclear weapons in their non-existent WMD arsenal, that NCLB would improve education, that the Healthy Forest Initiative would be good for the environment, and many more, along with they would bring honor and dignity to Washington...all lies on par with the worst Orwellian nightmare. But yeah, let's make this a "Washington" problem, instead of acknowledging that its genesis lies in the Republican platform. I know we're all supposed to be adults and above this kind of partisanship now, but I don't see how we will ever get traction to move past this kind of inertia until we see the problems for what they are.
Transcripts below the fold
A cartoon from the Houston Chronicle caught the flavor.
A man standing in front of a burning building labeled "the economy" is shouting into a phone: "My house is on fire, how soon can you get here?"
A fireman who looks like Barack Obama answers, "January 20th."
Yes, we do get only one President at a time, and this is not a comment on who had the right idea on the auto bailout.
Rather, this is an observation on how ineffectual both Congress and the administration have become.
Years of political spin, rosy reports that never seem to match the pictures on television (remember "Brownie, you've done a heck of a job"), and endless partisan turf wars have left the country cynical and suspicious of everything Washington says and does.
So Washington is unable to generate the political will to do anything.
Government's credibility has sunk so low that the pronouncements - no matter how dire - from the lame duck President and the even more unpopular Congress go unheeded, if not unheard.
When Republicans killed the bailout bill, the Republican President was so lacking in influence he could only watch.
Yes, there's a new fire chief coming January 20th, but his first assignment is not to put out the economic fire. First, he must restore the government's credibility.
He might begin by just being candid. Don't over-promise, don't underestimate the difficulty of what's ahead, and please, no magic solutions or assurances that all of this can get done without sacrifice or inconvenience to any of us.
That's the one approach we have proven simply doesn't work.
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How's the credibility of the press, Bob? Who is it who almost never challenges the official government line in this country? Oh, the hypocrisy.
We first have to put out the fire,then...rebuild the forrest. That would include the MSM. Fear sells media.
i guess that you support that every so
truthfullying bag of shit called fnc. really get a life.
the problems come from all directions in washington dc
some of the biggest are the lobbyists.....if there were
real penalties for the crimes committed in washington dc
and not all this let-me-kiss-your-ass bullshit, we might
have a better govt.
I think it's that the media sells fear. Fear and voyeurism. They try to scare us with vague or very unlikely threats, like terrorism, or dwell on dead blonde women, while they help cover up the sort of crimes that should really scare us: Repug misrule, governmental crimes, fascism, corporatism, systemwide political corruption. They show us a kabuki of the news while hiding the truth.
One very good result of the Bush years: It's now clear just how much the MSM is a propaganda machine, not a purveyor of truth.
Bankrupted everything he's laid hands on. Probably broke his piggy bank as a child.
It is the problem of government...but the repug party has taken it to such an extreme low, to talk about corruption in government as though it is the same ugliness that has existed the past eight years is lunacy. What we have experienced is below anything short of the days of joe mccarthy and his gang of thugs.
And as for the media doing their job??....oh please. There are only a small handful of journalists that do their job. The rest, and this loon included, are nothing but pawns to this corrupt regime that we've suffered under.
I'm taking my shoes off, and throwing them as I type this.
Don't get sucked in by the shoe show, the criminal Bush still has time to launch a whole new invasion searching for the shoes of mass destruction. And you'll see the media linking Richard Reed with Mohamad Atta's imaginary meeting in Iraq or where ever it wasn't.
Washington politicians could not get away with all the lies and spin if the press did their job. The media gasbags and the print columnists have given these guys a free pass. The truth is the press is more responsible than the politicians.
"Years of political spin, rosy reports that never seem to match the pictures on television (remember "Brownie, you've done a heck of a job"), and endless partisan turf wars have left the country cynical and suspicious of everything Washington says and does."
Translation:don't even think about enacting Liberal policies.
Just keep a timid,uncontroversial watch over things until the next Republican administration can drag America even further to the Right.
We watched this group of con men, congress and administration, waltz into office, singing the corruption and anti abortion tune. And my heart sank as the country did. I listened to them rail against those who didn't hold family values dear and the poor got poorer, and hungrier, and sicker. The middle class doesn't exist anymore. And now I listened to those same people, in their finely tailored suits, tell the media how they plan on finding their way back into the hearts of those they've conned and swindled.
And how are they doing it. Well, they're putting up blog sites and asking for suggestions on how they can improve. What might they do to win us back? I wonder if they've ever heard the phrase 'making a silk purse from a sow's ear'. It ain't going to happen.
Why not just be ethical, honest and pure, for a change? That would be refreshing. Instead of spinning what the polls tell them so that they fall in line with their predisposed positions, why don't they ask real questions and actually listen to the answers?
Or, (and here is a novel idea), have the politicians go out into their constituency and LISTEN to them? Face to face! Then go back and fight for what the people of this country want.
I am for congressional term limits. So are most of the voters (according to all polls). Why don't they listen to us and enact laws that accomplish that?
I wish that bills in congress were called exactly what they were, instead of euphemisms designed to mislead us. Like the "Healthy Forest Initiative" or the "No Child Left Behind" law, or the "Patriot Act"; all of which were the exact opposite of their names.
From now on, they should have to be called a name that gives some detail as to exactly what they do. For example, a law that provides for tougher standards on teachers should be called just that. A law that allows domestic wiretapping should be called the "Wiretapping of Citizens Act", and so on. No more happy names.
Also, one issue, one bill. No combining several disparate pieces of legislation into one. No tacking on pay raises for judges into the economic rescue bill. and so on . . .
"Like the "Healthy Forest Initiative" or the "No Child Left Behind" law, or the "Patriot Act"; all of which were the exact opposite of their names."
"Orwell" anyone?
someone, either a politician or a comedian, say that the correct name for the "No child left behind" law should be, "No child's behind left".
No Child Left Behind is actually a clever cover for No Future Neo Con Cannon Fodder Left Life Choices
How about Homeland security? Homeland? What, are we in the Alps somewhere? Homeland?
here, we just call it "No Child Gets Ahead" Act. It's easier that way, really.
Ronny Raygun named a missle "The Peace Keeper." Whatever they call it, you know what it is by noting its opposite.
patriot missile.
http://www.strategic-air-command.com/missiles...
All of these names send alarm bells to anyone with two brain cells to rub together.
But we're talking about congresscritters here. They saw the name of the bill and then felt they absolutely had to vote for it.
They didn't read the damn thing (like the Patriot Act), the name was so damn good.
Apparently congress is, or thinks we are, as gullible as new-born rubes. Looking at the Wall Street bailout, the pro-Lieberman crowd and the Plantation Caucus, I'm guessing the former.
As one of buschos enablers and cheerleaders, his credibility is sorely lacking.
but he still has a show.
damn! :(
To compare the democrats to battered spouses is to misrepresent what they have been doing.
Who can forget Tom Daschle rushing Bush's Iraq resolution through congress - with a minimum or no investigation as to the veracity of the facts? His constituents threw him out, but Obama has brought him back.
What was battered about Biden going around trumpeting the invasion of Iraq as a good idea?
The democrats who flocked to vote in favor of this disaster weren't battered. They were gung ho.
No. These guys are as hawkish and dumb as the Bush Republicans.
Wake up and smell the coffee.
EXACTLY!!!!!!!
I'm trying to stop even thinking of our government in terms of Democrat or Republican. The reality is that they're all on the same team, the "business as usual" team, and they're not on our side. Anything to maintain the corruption and their control of it.
There's a special level of hell for those enablers too.
But my material point is that these "credibility" issues stem from the way that Republicans govern. It isn't some passive "Washington" problem that you can throw up your hands and rue on a bi-partisan basis. When you have a group who says that government is the problem, you cannot expect them to govern well.
Think about it...did we have these credibility issues under Clinton? Did we say we were going to do something (protect the citizenry, the environment, women's rights, etc.) and then enact legislation that did the exact opposite?
Yes, the Democrats are equally as culpable for not listening to the American people and pushing harder to get out of Iraq and hold the current administration accountable for their lawlessness...but they are not the genesis of that lawlessness.
this op-ed appeared in my local daily a few weeks ago...
Obama urged to trust the media, hold weekly press conferences
http://cnhinews.com/node/954
in part:
“Don’t try to use the press,” said Joe Lockhart. “Understand the value of the press to informing the public.”
In other words, don’t manipulate, mislead and misguide the press or live to regret the consequences of suspicious, even hostile journalism that can destroy the good will new presidents enjoy with the American public.
Lockhart’s smart counsel was delivered this week at the annual Media Law Resource Center dinner in New York City. [...]
to which i can only wonder, 'where the hell've you been the past 8 years?!!!? this is great advice... would've been perfect for dubya in 2000...
where was all this concern and advice and demand to restore "credibility" since then???
denial, delusion, projection... all in mass quantities these days...
they are continuing to prove to be propagandists and not journalists.
Fascism? Okay, if you can't, how about "Corporatism?"
Reps or Dems doesn't matter so much- hasn't for quite a while. It's the big money guys who own/run the government; bankers, and CEO's and
oilmen and such, and their lobbyists. And most of them are recycled congresscritters - wash, rinse, recycle.
Bob Schieffer and most all of the other newsreaders on TV are just boughtand paid-for pawns of the same scam. My Friends, we live in the Matrix and nothing is as it seems.....
they are the same thing.
The USSR was fascist without corporations. There was no private sector.
Nazi Germany and fascist Italy (and the US) are corporatist.
Better go and double check your definition of Fascism. What the Soviet Union had may have appeared to resemble Fascism it didn't come close to fitting the actual definition. What that was was authoritarian socialism.
Actually, the USSR was a dictatorial communist state, where the government controlled virtually all industrial production and was the head of all "corporations." Nazi Germany and Italy were fascist--meaning that there was a dictatatorship, but limited government control of corporations. They were too busy drumming up blind nationalism and killing off political rivals to actively control corporations--so they put Nazi sympathizers at the top of those organizations. As a result, some German corporations were in cahoots with American corporations, even after the war began. Remember IBM's role in the Final Solution?
Got to prosecute bush and restore rule of law before anything else. Without restoring rule of law for all citizens including the government, nothing is going to work right.
You're certainly not going to regain any credibility without rule of law for bush.
Nail on the head.
Why is the silence deafening with the MSM in this regards? If any actions by our elected officials deserve being tried, it is this administration. No history lesson will be learned if this gets a pass.
FACT!
No doubt. If there is evidence of crimes (which there is: torture, wiretapping, etc.), then there MUST be a trial. If we allow Bush/Cheney to "Nixon" their way out of this, the country will never learn its lesson regarding abuse of power and--in my humble opinion--the ideological subterfuge that is at the core of the NeoConservative agenda and the modern Republican Party.
I hope that the new FCC under Obama will move quickly to re-regulate the media. It is obvious that they are the ones who do not have even a shred of credibility left. They have shamelessly prostituted themselves to the GOP and the religious nut jobs. Inevitably, this helped to plunge the country down the crapper. Media re-regulation now!
Americans must stop republican ideology that has come close to destroying our nation. Anti trust laws must be be enforced. The WalMarts, Super Targets must be forced to share their wealth in order to advance democracy and save the middle class.
Our shareholder nation was nothing more than smoke and mirrors. Republicans and many democrats gave huge tax breaks to big business only to have American jobs and profits shipped overseas. During the last decade, elite execs, their VPs and board members pocketed trillions while the middle class workers had stagnant wages and lost their jobs.
Reinvesting in small business and entrepreneurship is our only hope. It is impossible to work at big box businesses and raise a family, buy a home, purchase a car and send kids to college. Time to invest in America again. Otherwise we will all earn low per capita incomes like Shelby's Alabama, McConnell's Kentucky and Corker's Tennessee.
start supporting Publicly financed Federal elections; if they begin the process of either breaking up ALL monopolies (especially the 7 Media Giants) or very closely regulating them (as they did the phone and electric companies back before "deregulation" destroyed everything), If they extend Medicare and Medicaid to Everyone: Then I'll believe in Change.
So far the Dems -Pelosi & Reid, Feinstein and all the other Dems- appear to have actively colluded with the Repugs. I don't see evidence of "Battered Spouse" behavior. I see insatiable Greed for Power, a willingness to do Anything to acquire and keep Power, but- alas! no notion of what to Do with Power other than enrich themselves and their associates. The concept of using power for constructive purposes is simply not part of their mentalities. Obstructiveness is Second Nature to the Repugs, acquiescence is the Democrat style.
They answer to the same Masters, and their Masters are not the American People.
The only people who can change our government is us, and the Dems, Repugs, and their corporate masters will fight us every step of the way. Change will not come from within the system unless we start at the very grassroots.
I agree NoOneYouKnow. It will be The People versus The Government, The Judiciary and The MSM all three together. The Looms inside the system are only for themselves. They really don't care about the mess they are making. Nor do they care about the people.
Republicans could have had the blame all to themselves, but the Dems had to have a piece of the pie -- with Reid, Emanuel and Pelosi enabling the Repubs by caving and going along with their agenda.
I remember when congress had a relatively high approval rating (40% or so) after the 2006 elections, when they were actually confronting Bush. But Rahm Emanuel used his stupid stick to beat the Dems into submitting to the GOP (while Nancy was being properly "dignified" and aloof). And thus we have the "bipartisan" responsibility for the all-time low approval rating of Washington.
So obviously the Dems fired Rahm, Reid, and Pelosi...just kidding! They promote failures. So long as they are conventional wisdom failures. Oh, and bipartisan failures.
(And now I have Joe Lieberman in my mind, damnit...)
Face Shooter's BFF doesn't rate a real shoe. Blizzard in Minnesota; cable went out on the TV.
Ahhh.....
The credibility of Washington was destroyed by the Bush White House (backed by their Republican colleagues in Congress) that Iraq had nuclear weapons in their non-existent WMD arsenal, that NCLB would improve education, that the Healthy Forest Initiative would be good for the environment, and many more, along with they would bring honor and dignity to Washington...
Helped handily by people like Bob Schieffer and his amazing incuriousness about what Bush and his cabal were doing. Rather funny to hear this coming from any media figures.
Restoring the rule of law means punishing the Bush criminals.
Anything else is, well, "politics".
I would say childish politics because it sure as hell isn't adult politics to let such dangerous criminals go free!
Scheiffer Said:
Yes, there's a new fire chief coming January 20th, but his first assignment is not to put out the economic fire. First, he must restore the government's credibility..............................
I can't see the Government system with all it's lobbyists, interest groups and factions, networks and alliances, deals, corruption and pay-to-play ever being able to unravel the mess that it has got itself into. Then there are the Judiciary and the Press who compound the problems because they are both beholden to Political War-lords for their very existence. Both are too interested in survival to care that the country is going to the dogs.
Ordinary folks all over America have noticed how bad Government has become and they are deciding to stand up and do something about it. The Internet is alive with grassroot organisations laying plans to effect the sort of changes that will bring America back to it's roots and restore confidence in the future. How this movement develops is too soon to say but it is very determined.
The Democratic System in America is now so broken that the Country probably will have to fall into Communism before it can return to being a civilized Democracy maybe in 50 years time. And, if it's going to be then the new fire Chief with his radical left-wing resume is the right man in the right place for the job at hand.
Where will we get a fire chief with a "radical left-wing resume" though? And how the hell will we ever get such a person into a position to effect change?
Well it sure as hell wouldn't be very "adult" to pretend that the problems that exist aren't there. It sure as hell wouldn't be very "adult" to ignore where those problems originated. And it sure as hell wouldn't be very "adult" to let the criminals of the bush administration and those that aided and abetted them get off scot-free for their crimes!!!
Why doesn't this journalistic dinosaur retire? Must be addicted to the self-importance.
"Yes, there's a new fire chief coming January 20th, but his first assignment is not to put out the economic fire. First, he must restore the government's credibility.
He might begin by just being candid. Don't over-promise, don't underestimate the difficulty of what's ahead, and please, no magic solutions or assurances that all of this can get done without sacrifice or inconvenience to any of us."
This could be advice to Us as A People also. As much admiration and hope that I and others have for President Obama, we must always keep in mind that he is only a man and not some supernatural savior. A man who is about to inherit the biggest mess this country has seen in it's recorded history. A mess that won't go away in one term or even two. He has to convince not only his party, but maybe more so the Republicans it's not about them. It's not about toting party lines, defending ideologies and this 'what's in it for me' mentality that permeates our Government. It's about the Country. President Obama needs to remind all those who work in our Government, both State and Federal, that they work for The People and insist upon it. Serving in public office is not a career, it is a commitment to The People.
Schieffer is so full of himself he doesn't even see his complicity in the problem.
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