Posted on 09/27/2011 9:56:16 AM PDT by Libloather
Rep. Waters: Obama ‘got carried away’
By Alicia M. Cohn, Daniel Strauss and Mike Lillis
09/26/11 09:19 PM ET
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Monday tried to downplay friction between the black community and President Obama but warned the president might have gotten “carried away” in remarks made over the weekend.
Waters, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), appeared in a number of media interviews on Monday following Obama’s speech to the CBC Gala on Saturday, where the president told the audience to “stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying.”
Waters said that there was room for improvement in the relationship between the CBC and Obama.
“We’ve received a lot of comments today with people asking what did he mean and who was he talking to?” she said on MSNBC. “And I’ve simply responded by saying I don’t know who the president was talking to — certainly not the Congressional Black Caucus. He certainly wasn’t talking about us. “
She then noted that black lawmakers didn’t go on vacation during the August recess. “We were actually working during our break,” she said.
Obama spent a week over the August recess in Martha’s Vineyard with his family.
Waters’s remarks highlight a dilemma facing CBC members, who have been walking a fine line between supporting a historic president they want very much to see succeed and pushing him to fight harder for some of the policy priorities they think he’s neglecting.
Some CBC members recently questioned why Obama’s August jobs tour through the Midwest didn’t feature any stops in the black, urban areas hit hardest by the recession. By contrast, CBC leaders used the August recess to promote jobs in Los Angeles, Detroit and other cities most affected by the downturn.
Obama’s support among African-Americans dropped in September to 58 percent, down from 83 percent five months ago, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll.
“We love the president. We want him to be successful,” Waters said during the annual CBC conference in Washington. “But does he feel our pain? Does he understand what’s going on out here?”
CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) has acknowledged the delicate political task facing him and other CBC members. On one hand, they’ve urged the White House to do more to fight the 16 percent unemployment rate in the black community; on the other, they don’t want to be overly critical of Obama for fear of undermining the nation’s first African-American president.
“If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” Cleaver said earlier this month. “There is a less volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president.”
Last week, Cleaver’s office took the unusual step of issuing a press release attacking a McClatchy news article suggesting that Cleaver “treads [a] line between criticizing [and] supporting Obama.”
The article, Cleaver said, “was comprised of dated quotes which were taken out of context.”
“I, along with the Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus, remain strong supporters of President Obama’s American Jobs Act, and we are all working diligently to see the bill considered and passed,” Cleaver said.
Waters has consistently said the CBC supports Obama, and said Monday that she doesn’t believe Obama meant what he said Saturday “as some slap or some insult.”
However, she indicated that CBC members still might not be satisfied with Obama’s level of cooperation with the caucus.
She suggested Obama has used tougher language with the CBC than with other interest groups.
“He certainly didn’t tell [the Hispanic Caucus] to stop complaining, and he would never say that to the gay and lesbian community, who really pushed him on ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’ Even in a speech to AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], he would never say to the Jewish community to stop complaining about Israel,” Waters said on CBS.
“The president can get to know the Congressional Black Caucus a lot better,” she said on MSNBC.
Even the nuts are smelling blood in the water.
Herman Cain will be happy to receive the 'grumblers and complainers' votes. Lord willing if he's the GOP nominee and he gets to speak UNFILTERED directly the OblahMao ship o' fools is gonna take a few torpedos.
He’s a conman-thug congresswoman. Someone like Obama will say audacious things, erupting the emotions, knowing that the listener will be set back on their heels. And while rocked back on your heels, he goes for the gut punch, watch-out! Obama is not quite so audacious as a Communist dictator, because he knows the climate would not allow him that freedom... but, BUT, that kind of climate is not far away so long as you don’t question what he is up to... keeping YOU on the plantation.
And what's up with Obama urging them to march ... like he also is powerless and is an outsider/community-organizer rather than the president?
The whole thing seems like very poor theater.
The whitey, elitist 1/2 side gets in the way. Moochelle got the slave blood but Barry is too Regal. When your king speaks Maxine your duty is to humbly bow down. 'Yes Masser....whadever you sayz'...
Hung on their own petards....stuck in their own spider webs. Does race trump principles or vise versa? Its good they face this deceptive dilemma and whether they choose bondage or freedom.
You folks dont’ get it. Maxine Waters, communist, America hater that she is, along with her “other” CBC cohorts knows Obama is becoming toxic and radioactive in the country and now, within the heretofore lock-step Black community!!! God forbid that Herman Cain ever becomes POTUS!!! The game for the sweet and cushy CBC blood suckers of American Black folks is beginning to crumble!!! Best thing that could ever happen to American Blacks is the political destruction of Barack Hussein Obama, ditto for the Congressional Black Caucus and ditto for the NAACP!!! Herman Cain and Alan West are the rising stars and hope for the American Blacks and, in fact, for every American!!!
Well, the good news here is that only white people practice race-based politics!
/sarc
Waters, the CBC, Obama, Holder and the whole rotten mess are a big part of what is wrong with Washington. The Federal government is supposed to serve ALL of America, regardless of race, color, creed, religion, language or planet. Waters and company spend more time worrying about the racial aspects of government than they do worrying about what the government, as a whole, is doing to or for America.
As long as these racists are allowed to bring race into every aspect of our lives, we are never going to become one nation truly under God - and they know it and don't ever want that to happen.
>Herman Cain and Alan West
Wow. I’d like to see the left try to squirm around calling Conservatives “racist” after “typical white people” fall over each other to elect these two as PRez/VP.
Maxine Waters for President 2012!
I’m surprised that she didn’t say that it was his white half coming through!
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