It’s funny to read their comments. They are disillusioned with his tactics from the Left!! One comment was “Just who the [leftist-blog-accepting f-word] does Obama think elected him??”
Rolling, floor, laughing.
That article contains this quote:
The White House is smoking mad at Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who says he’s voting against the climate bill — despite the lobbying of the entire First Family in the Oval Office last night.
If the bill goes down, Obama won’t forget Doggett’s role, Democrats say.
It’s “stunning that he would ignore the wishes not just of his president, but of his constituents and the country,” said an administration official.
This has become an emerging theme among both the White House and House leadership: that progressive members of Congress have an obligation to carry out “the wishes of the President” even when they disagree (now, apparently, it’s “stunning” when they defy his dictates). That was the same subservient mentality that led House Democrats who admitted they opposed the war supplemental spending and/or the foreign bank bailout to nonetheless vote for the bill: because they President favored it. The duty of Congress is not to obey the wishes of the President.
Note, too, that the sort of bullying tactics that were used for the war supplemental bill and now for the cap-and-trade bill are only directed towards the House progressives who want legislation to be less beholden to corporate donors; those tactics are never invoked against Blue Dogs who play a vital role in impeding progressive legislation and thus supply the perfect excuse for Democratic leaders as to why such legislation does not pass. Let’s see if these tactics are used against Blue Dogs who impede a public option for health care, the repeal of DOMA and Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and various issues relating to the closing of Guantanamo. Will we hear condemnations from Rahm Emanuel’s underlings about how stunning and outrageous it is that conservative Democrats are “ignoring the wishes of the President?”
Wow. I never thought I would see something like this covered in salon.
People are so uninformed that they don't even realize these are two of the three separate but equal branches of the federal government. It isn't a hierarchy that you can turn into an oligarchy, though Obama thinks it is.