David Gregory to Axelrod: 'Shouldn't Obama Move to the Center?'
Sometimes it's all I can do to stop myself from throwing something through the TV screen, like this morning when David Gregory kept pushing David Axelrod about moving to the center.
Now, I have to admit: It's been a shock for America to adjust to our radical new single-payer health care system, having the troops pulled out of the Middle East, and the president nationalizing the banks and resurrecting FDR's WPA, putting America's unemployed back to work -- all in the first year.
Yeah, in what freakin' universe?
If I ever have occasion to be in an elevator with David Gregory, I will have to ask him one burning question: "Just where the hell do you think the middle is?"
MR. GREGORY: Let me move on to domestic matters and that pretty extraordinary appearance on Friday in Baltimore at the House Republican retreat. The president came there, a kind of British style question-and-answer period. He even gets the blueprint for the Republican agenda from the House side. I wonder whether the decision to accept that invitation-- was there recognition on the president's part that if he wants to be more than a one-term president, he's got to govern from the middle?
MR. AXELROD: You know, David, I'd say a few things about that. First of all, the decision to attend was not a last-minute decision on our part, it was, it was, it was on the calendar, we were aware of it. The Republican caucus had been good enough to extend that invitation. And this is something that--we had visited the caucus before. But it's interesting the way you asked the question: Does he, does he--did he do it because he wants to be more than a one-term president? We don't sit around in the White House making calculations on that basis. The president of the United States has one concern, which is how do we move this country forward, how do we get people back to work, how do we lift incomes, how do we build some security for the middle class who have been facing economic challenges not just through this recession but for a decade or more? And, and that's what he's thinking about. And if we can get some cooperation from the other side to do that, we're going to be a stronger country for it. That's why he went to the caucus, and that's why we're going to continue to have a dialogue with Mr. Boehner and others.
MR. GREGORY: Does he feel, does he feel like he has to move to the middle to achieve?
MR. AXELROD: Again, I don't think this is a question of left, right or center, this is a question of what, what--what's--what works. How do we--now we've proposed, for example, tax cuts for small business. We, we, we passed without, frankly, the help of the Republican caucus, we passed 25 tax cuts last year, mostly aimed at the middle class and small businesses. The president's come back and said, "We need to do more." We've, we've gone from a period of rapid descent in our economy to, as we saw on Friday, 6 percent growth. But the job production has to be accelerated. And so he said, "Let's give a tax cut to small businesses to begin hiring--to encourage hiring." That was an idea that Mr. Cantor, Mr. Boehner's deputy, said was a good idea at one time, and he said that they would follow if we would lead on it. He said, "Let's eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses." He said, "Let's accelerate the tax break that businesses get for buying equipment so that they can, they can reap the benefit of it next year." Also, something that will encourage growth in--job growth. These are things we ought to be able to work together on, and we--and I hope we can.
The Overton window is stuck so far to the right, Gregory's comments are nothing but inane.
Shouldn't YOU move off a cliff?
Ha ha!
...clearly, he was dropped on his head a least once in his past.
Obama is going to be a one-term president because he has sold out to the mythical center (he's turned out to be quite the corporatist prostitute, hasn't he?).
To the Center of what exactly David Gregory (opininiomedia's bukkake boy)?? Wipe that corporate cum off your face and ask that again, I dare you!
not to have to watch NBC---this is why!
a hacktacular partisan. Call it 'Meet the Right Wing Press'
me-oww!
With KKKarl. I mean really, how much more can we ask of the media?
What is your conceptual, continuity?
the middle is to the far right.
That the middle is the far left.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
It's nice to read something uncompromising.
I enjoy your posts.
That's the "far left" to these spinmeister scum.
Is it the 21st century yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yarYjuN-m8I
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
solution for everything. Of course, that's no solution at all.
Dem screws up = must "move to the center" and abandon their principles
Repub screws up = just yell at their constituents louder to compensate for lack of principles
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
I dunno
Every school principle I ever had seem republican.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
be too. It was funny and ironic to listen to them complain about liberal bias in the classrom while they clearly had no one stopping them from shoving conservatism down students throats themselves...
Only time that any attribute of mine has ever affected how I was graded or feedback given was due to my outing myself as a feminist. Same stellar grade, but the falling over oneself w/ praise got replaced with "OK" in big letters. :P
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
You went to the University of Oklahoma?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
University of Oklahoma though!
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
Bakersfield was the closest town to Edwards AFB.
We didn't consider it worth the drive.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Bakersfield), growing up you can't wait to move out of your parents home and move to Bakersfield, unless you're more of the misfit type and want to go straight to LA or SF where more people are likely to understand ya.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
Obama has always been a centrist. The GOP keeps moving the goalpost further and further off the field every time the President tries to work with them.
I say, shut the gate on the GOP and leave them out in the cold for a few years while we finish putting the country back on an even keel.
from their offices, dump it all on the front steps of Capitol Hill, and change the locks. Tell them the old school way that the American people want a divorce.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
Unfortunately, our Democrats seem to be suffering from battered spouse syndrome.
*
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
Onion or chocolate?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Chocolate batter, please! ;)
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
Am I the only guy who's a-salted and buttered a date for movie night?
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Problem there is the right is spinning everything and getting dummies to believe the BS. I still believe the GOP has vote rigging strongly in place and if they get another close election they can pull off another "2000" Supreme Court appointment.
Obama needs to keep hammering the message he dropped on the GOP at their gathering. Don't blame Bush anymore directly, blame the GOP leadership who was in the back pocket of Bush.
I'd say he will be a one term president if he DOES move to the center. Perhaps he should have just said "Appoint Palin to your cabinet, make abortion illegal, and cut all taxes to anyone making more than $50,000 a year............ and he will be re-elected".
...I've got just one finger for him.
of Gregory "dancing" in hell with Karl Rove and now Rush Limbaugh to avoid the flames...
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
is what Gregory thinks is "the middle." Which is why he always has a majority of right-wing hacks on his crappy show.
What a right-wing ideologue and embarrassment to journalism Rove's dancing partner has always been.
and he disappoints anew every week.
Fox News Sunday.
This "move to the center" was rolled out like "death panels" was rolled out, with several talking heads reciting the latest talking points in unison. I'm seeing yet another marketing campaign.
!
What is your conceptual, continuity?
The Republicans have never gotten out of marketing mode. The White House Iraq Group, was designed to market the Iraq war to the public. This rolling out of "talking points" with identical verbiage, simultaneously coming from Limbaugh, Cheney, and so forth. The "death panels" came from a marketing team. I was educated in marketing, and I know it when I see it. They like the word "death". "Death" tax, "death" panels? I think Republicans are the "death" party. Didn't they murder at least 100,000 Iraqis and consigned 4500 troops to their deaths so that corporations could steal Iraq's oil?
I think that bipartisanship is hopeless with a party that is continually in marketing/campaign mode.
Obama replies to David Gregory (I wish!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssC77hapv0g
Democratic Party progressive, Vietnam veteran and proud Union member for 41 years
For once the moron Gregory is correct.
Obama should move to the left, and closer to the center; and the hell with the republicans and republican-lites (DLC).
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
Obama should move to the center, he's been to the right for far too long...
Is there any kind of record of Gregory or any of his pals pestering the Bush administration to move towards the center?
Has any Republican admin. been harassed with this obnoxious sing song demand?
"To me, truth is not some vague, foggy notion. Truth is real. And,
at the same time, unreal. Fiction and fact and everything in between,
plus some things I can't remember, all rolled into one big "thing."
This is truth, to me. "
-Jack Handy
Strange, especially when "left" is proven to be more beneficial to the country than any 'right' policy.
He is doing his job, manufacturing consent. He is supposed to shape public sentiment and project the boundary conditions for the possibilities acceptable to our ruling oligarchy.
Fucking media whore.
Cause he's too damn far right.
Republicans are liars and simply cannot be trusted.
there is that. I kept thinking that, but I couldn't get up on the board with the same grace and brevity you just did.
Thanks, Fish!
me-oww!
To be ignorant is one thing, to be stupid another; but to use your stupidity to highlight your ignorance is well............David Gregory.
If I were a psychopath, I would join the republican party, and get in on the gravy train taking the Teabircher morons to the cleaners.
Instead of yapping on TV shows.
Let's see, no single-payer, no public option, no medicare expansion, no tax increase on the wealthy, little new bank regulation, increased troops in Afghanistan, a freeze on domestic spending....just where has Obama been too far left? And what does Gregory think Obama should do to go more to the center? Become a Republican?
This president is now past the first year mark into his seemingly non-performing presidency and is now scheming along with his political cronies how to stay on for another four.
Is this what David Gregory really believes, or is he a lying sack of shit? Meaning, is he so out of touch with reality that he believes Obama is not already firmly ensconced in the middle, or is he intentionally, insultingly, obediently misleading his viewers?
believes the crap he says, however.
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
So "yes" to both?
*
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
I wish he'd govern from the center. At least then, the country might make a slight budge back to the left.
Meanwhile Bush delivered the goods on a seismic shift to the right, above and beyond what he promised, and no one ever ONCE asked the question, "shouldn't he move to the center"?
Hmmm. That "librul" media.
Actually, I think it would be a start if he moved towards the center. It would be better if he could move even further to the left than that though.
"These are things we ought to be able to work together on, and we--and I hope we can."
Haven't these guys learned yet after a whole year?
Why not move Meet the Pests off the air as a start to cleaning up our national political dialogue? If I want to hear psychobabble I'll (never) tune in Fox News.
"We will find fulfillment not in the goods that we have, but in the good we can do for each other."
Robert F. Kennedy
"Just where the hell do you think the middle is?"
Susie -
It's quite simple, really: To people like Gregory, the "middle" is midway between Obama and the Republicans. So to move to the "middle," Obama would have to move to the right.
But when he got to that point, the "middle" would still be defined as midway between Obama and the Republicans. So to move to the "middle," he'd have to move to the right. Again.
And so on.
See? Simple.
I can tell you as "Commander in Chief" Obama has the sole power to summarily end the hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan without having to answer to any of the ands, ifs, or buts from his General staff or the MIC toadies on the National Security Council.
It takes Congress to authorize or declare war, but the Commander in Chief can end it with the stroke of pen without their permission. This act alone would save hundreds of billions of dollars
Axelrod is an idiot. Instead of barfing out five minutes of talking points in response to that question, he simply should have asked:
"Specifically, what things has President Obama done that are not in the center?"
That's the way you frame an argument. When somebody makes a ridiculous statement, and then asks you to prove it's not true, and then you flail around trying to prove a negative, and explain when you stopped beating your wife, you simply expose the weakness of their statement by asking them to provide details.
Obama doesn't need to move any policies to the center, since his policies are already to the right of center. He just needs to change his rhetoric, and the Democratic party needs to get some message discipline, and pay more attention to optics as well as policy.
David Gregory continues to show his extreme willingness to allow his personal politics to interfere with his job as a "reporter/journalist," and his willingness to be a tool of the Republican Party. He should just declare his support for the Republican Party and admit that everything he does/says on MTP is designed to promote their policies and make progressives look like enemies of the state. The RP couldn't have a better propangandist on Sunday teevee than David Gregory.
... is a shell of the POS he used to be. I stopped watching MTP since this Republican shill took over.
This was another fuck up by NBC... Conan was the first, Greogry the second.
shilled for a dangerous administration and a dangerous political party...
"The greatest tyranny is censoring information in order to be better able to control people." - Cristina Saralegui
is where you kick Gregory.
Be as you wish to seem
"If I ever have occasion to be in an elevator with David Gregory, I will have to ask him one burning question: "Just where the hell do you think the middle is?""
The center is wherever our GOP-loving, corporate owned -and-paid for media says it is.
If you have selfish, ignorant citizens, you're gonna get selfish, ignorant leaders.
George Carlin
I haven't since 2003. I don't think I ever will again. Who wants to spend an hour listening to some half witted over paid corporate liar spew bullshit every where?
republicanism/conservatism is a mental illness!
You know, David, I'd say a few things about you, do your own research from now on, stay away from the usual water-cooler analysts, and learn a great deal more about the Presidents agenda, will ya please?
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
The Republican Party? Obama is right of center already, and way, way out to the right of his base.
I wish we had a real left party in this country, just so guys like David Gregory could see what "left" means. A real liberal would've pushed hard for single payer, and played hard ball with any corporate entities who put up a PR fight. They would've ended up keeping silent because arguing cost more.
Since Obama is not really a liberal or progressive, and doesn't have much of a backbone to stand his ground to get health care reform rolling or at least some traction, it makes me realize that there hasn't been a democrat in the WH since LBJ some 45 years ago to stand his ground and push thru something productive such as Medicare and civil rights. It's sad hardly anything like that has been accomplished - just seems like the last hurrah of progress made was congress and the people pressuring Nixon out of office. So, ever since either Carter or Reagan, there has been SO much gridlock delaying such fundamental human rights such as health care, a solid career, free education, recreation, et al.
Perhaps if LBJ had not just had his President assassinated and annihilated Goldwater in an election, he might not have been as progressive or effective. He was a fairly conservative Texas Senator before JFK picked him for VP.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
You really don't know much about history, do you? LBJ had one major problem in office, his foreign policy -- which was really a continuation of the policy JFK and Eisenhower had pursued. His domestic policies were very, very liberal. LBJ actually could have been a great President if he hadn't screwed up Vietnam so bad... and if you'll recall, the day he signed the Civil Rights Act, he knew he had screwed the Democratic Party, at least as far as elections go. That one stroke of the pen sent 12 states over....
When stupid David Gregory asks a question, such as "Should BO move to the center to govern?", the correct answer is: "BO already IS governing from the center."
Period, end of story.
with a question. Can you name a centrist Republican in Congress, Mr. Gregory? Name one that does not call themselves a conservative.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
That's why nobody watches his show unless Maddow is on
Barack Obama: Change we can only imagine
wouldn't be ragging on him here.
“Why would anyone with a functioning brain believe this guy?”
Some guy with an eating disorder
These are the same Republicans who think Obama is the 2nd coming of Hitler and thus obviously believe Hitler was evil because he was too liberal. Obviously they would have aligned with Nazi Germany if Hitler were further to the right.
I'd have been ready for that question, and said: "The Obama Administration has tried to reach out to the Republicans and made a number of concessions that moved us too far to the right ... we should move back to the center."
Is a repub sycophant.
NBC should consider asking Conan to take David Gregory's seat on Meet The Press. He surely could not do worse.
There was a day when newspeople were expected to ask intelligent and tough questions. Russert was one of the last who continued in that tradition. It's a disgrace to Russert's memory that this "newsmodel" has taken his place.
Bush was extreme right wing- yet I don't recall hearing any of these people who are calling for Obama to move to the center having called for Bush to move to the center...
Yet another right wing double standard?
is really making me miss Tim Russert.
How original Gregory ! Can't you at least pretend that you have a bit of integrity and are deserving of a pay check ? What a jackass . Shit oh dear . I cannot believe that this dork , this fraud , was given Russert's job , may as well be Chuck Todd for cryin out loud .
Insanity , it is what it is , there is no understanding it .
I haven't heard the media as Gregory ever ask Bush or any Republicans to move to the center. Ever !!!!!
it's a question that needs to be asked
"We already are in the center, you tool. It's the Republican obstructionists who refuse to compromise on their extreme right-wing views."
What Gregory really means is, "Should Obama flail himself bloody with chains as atonement for being black while he begs the teabaggers to let him bus at their convention.
How about this narrative: 8 years of failed republican and rightist policies. Lets have them move to the center or left to fix things? love corporate sponsored MSM.
I miss Tim Russet too:(
Teeth whitening kits, halitosis treatment
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