The Inevitable Nobel-As-Club

Helen Thomas today at the White House:

Q Since there's so much talk of war now, will this have an impact and make him seek peace more?

MR. GIBBS: Well, look, Helen, I would point you to what the President said today. Obviously we've got -- the President and his team have worked since the very beginning of our administration to work toward bringing peace to the Middle East.

Q With more war that's going on.

MR. GIBBS: Well, we have these disagreements, you and me, Helen. (Laughter.) But obviously I think -- the President mentioned both his hopes for and work for peace in the Middle East, as well as the commitments that he has as Commander-in-Chief to protect the American people and to prevent the spread of the type of violent extremism that we see in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Q But we're conducting wars there. Is he trying to find a way to peace?

MR. GIBBS: Well, again, Helen, we've done this before. There are people --

Q Don't say we've done this before. I'm asking you a question.

MR. GIBBS: I understand. There are those that sit there in that region of the world and actively are plotting and planning to do America harm.

Q How do you know that? And what are we doing to them?

MR. GIBBS: One, I watch the news. And two, I get that from the intelligence briefings.

I don't know if the President will have any problem sending in more troops after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize - he certainly didn't before - but this meme is absolutely out there. And it really shouldn't be a problem for a President who wants to live up to those promises, though Robert Gibbs was obviously flustered by it.

I don't buy the tradmed argument that the Nobel will somehow hurt Obama, and I don't know if it constrains future events, but it certainly gives himself something to live up to.

Late-In-The-Game Czar Pushback

I'm happy to see some Administration pushback on the bogus czar issue. Anita Dunn penned this blog post debunking some of the Beck-inspired myths about "czars," which is basically a title for an adviser to the White House. This is a media creation, encouraged by past Presidencies who want to be seen as proactive, to label someone with oversight over a particular issue a "czar" to prove attentiveness. The czars have almost always been ineffectual, the most famous example being the head of the ONDCP, or "drug czar". I'd prefer the media didn't use the term for hires who are coordinating various policies, in the same manner as has been done for many, many years.

Still, it's good to see this kind of spirit:

But of course, it’s really the hypocrisy here that is noteworthy. Just earlier today, Darrell Issa, a Republican from California and one of the leaders in calling for an investigation into the Obama Administration’s use of "czars", had to admit to Fox News that he had never raised any objections to the Bush Administration’s use of "czars". Many of these members who now decry the practice have called on Presidents in the past to appoint "czars" to coordinate activities within the government to address immediate challenges. What is clear is that all of this energy going into these attacks could be used to have a constructive conversation about bringing this country together to address our challenges moving forward – and it doesn’t take a "czar" to bring that about! Just some folks willing to act in good faith [...]

Many of the same critics who are decrying these roles have applauded or even pushed for them in the past. Sen. Robert Bennett has criticized czars as "undermining the Constitution," but reportedly prodded President Clinton to appoint a Y2K Czar. In a 1999 CNN appearance, Sen. Bennett said "I think John Koskinen has been superb. I wrote the president six months before John was appointed, recommending that he appoint a Y2K czar." At a 1999 National Press Club luncheon, Bennett told reporters the Koskinen was "there to help, prod, give information, and make analyses and reports" and said he spoke with the czar to ensure "we maintain the kind of bipartisan and across-the-government sort of communication that this never becomes a political issue."

Senator Lamar Alexander has also criticized President Obama’s "czars," calling them "an affront to the Constitution." But during remarks delivered on the Senate floor in 2003, Sen. Alexander said "I would welcome" President Bush’s "manufacturing job czar." That same day in the Senate, he also expressed support for President Bush’s AIDS czar Randall Tobias.

Robert Gibbs followed up on this in the White House briefing room today, even noting that the aforementioned Randall Tobias showed up on the D.C. madam's list, to little comment from the Republican side of the aisle.

All this is fine, but the Beck/Fox News crowd has been riling up their folks about czars for months now. One czar, Van Jones, was already picked off and forced to resign. Uber-wingnut Jack Kingston has a bill with 99 co-sponsors to cut off funding for advisers unconfirmed by the Senate. "Czar" is part of the teabagger lexicon (go about 6:22 in):



The time to go on the offense against this was about four months ago. There is no such thing as "not giving the claims oxygen" by responding. This is a fight, and the opponents don't play fair. The Administration is finally coming around to getting in the arena, but it's way late in the game.

Must Have Had A Restful Vacation

Robert Gibbs appears to be on his game today. In response to Fourthbranch's rantings on Fox News, he gave the appropriate rejoinder:

I’m not entirely sure that Dick Cheney’s predictions on foreign policy have borne a whole lot of fruit over the last eight years in a way that have been either positive or, to the best of my recollection, very correct.

In other words, why would you give a crap what Dick Cheney has to say?

Later, asked about Mike Enzi attacking health care reform while also serving as one of the key bipartisan negotiators, Gibbs replied:

"In Senator Enzi's case, he doesn't believe there's a pathway to get bipartisan support and the President thinks that's wrong," Gibbs said. "I think Senator Enzi's clearly turned over his cards on bipartisanship and decided that it's time to walk away from the table."

Now it's time for the President to walk away from the table. Not sure if Gibbs' new, more aggressive approach signals something similar from Obama, but I know that the base would reward such feistiness.

What Obama Wants

Robert Gibbs sez Obama "wants" a bipartisan bill. I want a recording session with Styx. (That's right, Styx) It's not going to happen, however. So he can "want" something all he wants, even say it publicly, but if he wants a bill, he's going to have to go it alone. And I think Obama recognizes that.

The President has also said that he "wants" a public option in the bill. It's funny how it's given as Beltway conventional wisdom that reality is intruding on the ability to get a public option, but not on bipartisanship. Especially when you look at the numbers, with no Democrat committing to filibuster health care reform, but 64 Democrats in the House vowing to vote against any bill without a public option. Beltway types aren't really good at math.

Maybe they can read a poll.

Just 34% of voters nationwide support the health care reform plan proposed by President Obama and congressional Democrats if the so-called "public option" is removed. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 57% oppose the plan if it doesn't include a government-run health insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

There are multiple positive elements to be gained from a health care reform bill as set out by Congress - Families USA lists ten of them very succinctly right here - but the lack of messaging from the White House created a vacuum, and the public plan slid into that space. It cannot be bargained away at this point, as it's become synonymous with reform. Clamping down on insurers is great (though who, exactly, will do that?), and I want to see Medicaid expanded and subsidies for those who can't afford coverage and real competition through an exchange. And modernizing health care delivery and Medicare spending, cutting waste from the system and securing give-backs from providers is all awesome. But the politics of the situation are such that the public option can no longer be decoupled from the bill. Indeed, the intensity and energy around the public option is the only thing sustaining the bill, as it completely changed the conversation from right-wing tea partiers and gun-toting loonies to policy considerations. Even with supporters outnumbering the opposition, the town hall meetings gambit was a losing bet and it would have threatened reform severely. Obama has a chance to deliver on what he says he "wants" now, which would burnish his credentials among the base and create the energy needed to drag legislation over the finish line.

I guess it all depends on what he wants: bipartisanship, or a public option.

Top-Level Democrats Assault The Extremist Astroturfers

The White House took the lead on this, publicly calling the teabagger disruptions an example of astroturfing and citing conservative industry-backed groups taking credit for activating the rioters. Now other elements of the Democratic Party are taking up the baton. Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer blasted the clown show today:

Speaking outside the White House after meeting with President Obama, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Chuck Schumer of New York both dismissed the significance of boisterous protesters who have been interrupting Democratic lawmakers' events.

"It is a small fringe group," Schumer told the Huffington Post, "and if we let a small group of people who want to monopolize the conversation and not listen to the facts win, you may as well hang it up."

"These town hall meetings have been orchestrated by the tea baggers and the birthers to just be a free-for-alls, make a lot of noise, go on YouTube and show discord," said Durbin. "I mean that is what they are determined to do. But that is not going to accomplish what we need to accomplish: real health care reform."

Likewise, the DNC called the protesters "right-wing extremists funded by K Street" and alluded to the Palin/McCain rallies with the ugly cries of racism and xenophobia. The House Speaker's blog has a pretty comprehensive list of the extremism of the rioters, the links to special interests, and the coordinated strategy to shut down debate. And I've seen every single Democrat on cable news today talking about the Brooks Brothers riot, astroturfing, lobbyist-funded front groups, and the like. It's pretty interesting.

Will this push either the extremism or the astroturf element of this into the conversation, given the obvious evidence of lobby groups strategizing on this? I'm not sure. The media has a depressing tendency to treat a mob like a poll sample of public attitudes. In fact, public support for health care is still very strong. But the various ambushes throughout the country will still get national and (perhaps more important) local ink.

I'm glad that Democrats are fighting back, but I'm compelled to note that their charges also have to get into the game themselves. The ads have largely been garbage, the organizing hasn't gotten the traction from the media, and they have been unable to drown out the shouters. There is a gap here.

Gibbs Invokes The Brooks Brothers Riots

We now have Robert Gibbs openly calling this the Brooks Brothers Brigade. That's a start.

Q: Are you concerned at what appears to be well-orchestrated protesting of health care reform at town halls as derailing your message?

GIBBS: NO, I get asked every day about the myriad of things that could be derailing our message. I would point out that I don't know what all those guys were doing, what were they called, the Brooks Brothers Brigade in Florida in 2000, appear to have rented a similar bus and are appearing together at town hall meetings throughout the country

Q: They seem to be pretty widespread.

GIBBS: I seem to see some commonality in who pops up in some of these things.
Q: Like individuals?

GIBBS: Yeah.

Q: Really?

GIBBS: Yeah.

Q: Can you discuss names or ....

GIBBS: I don't have names but I think you can see quite a bit of similarity between who shows up where.

He's clearly trying to lead the horses of the press corps to water, not that they'll drink. But the industry groups are admitting their role in activating the protests.

...incidentally, if you want to follow these riots yourself, and maybe even produce a macaca moment, I've posted an embed of FDL's widget of upcoming town hall meetings all over the country. Check the right-hand column.

You're Either With Us Or You're With The Birthers

Robert Gibbs actually got asked a question about the President's birth certificate in a press conference today.

For real.

Q: Is there anything you can say to make the birthers go away?

GIBBS: No. I mean, the God’s honest truth is no. I mean, Bill, let’s understand this. And I almost hate to indulge in such an august setting as the White House — and I mean this in seriousness — the White House briefing room, discussing the made-up, fictional nonsense of whether or not the President was born in this country.

A year and a half ago, I asked that the birth certificate be put on the Internet, because lord knows, if you’ve got a birth certificate and you put it on the Internet, what else could be the story? Here’s the deal, Bill. If I had some DNA, it wouldn’t assuage those who don’t believe he was born here. But I have news for them and for all of us. The President was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, the 50th state of the greatest country on the face of the earth. He’s a citizen.

Gibbs went on to kind of blame "the Internet" for fanning the flames of the discussion, but you can look at media figures like Lou Dobbs and multiple conservative bretheren, who have given the story oxygen, as well as the failure of Republican members of Congress to forcefully denounce such nonsense. They should not be spared from the blame on this.



I think you have to hand it to Neil Abercrombie for forking Republicans on this by forcing them to vote on the record.

Dem Rep. Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii is going to introduce a resolution on the House floor today that seems designed to put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism in a jam.

The measure Abercrombie will introduce commemorates the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. But here’s the rub, his spokesman tells me: It describes Hawaii as Barack Obama’s birthplace.

“In the language of the resolution, there is a statement that Hawaii is the birthplace of the 44th President of the United States,” Abercrombie spokesman Dave Helfert confirms.

That confronts House GOPers with a choice: They can vote for the measure, and endorse the idea that Obama was born in Hawaii, which could earn the wrath of birthers. Or they can vote against commemorating the 50th state’s joining of our blessed Union. Or GOPers can skip the vote, but that could look nutty.

That's pretty brilliant strategy, shockingly so for a Democrat. Obviously this is a distraction, but if as Gibbs said it isn't going away, you might as well make Republicans feel some pain for it.

...Well, that's one way around it - getting Michelle Bachmann to use a procedural rule to postpone the vote. That won't hold forever, though.

...Bachmann couldn't hold out, and the verdict is 378-0. Not one Republican raising all these "questions" was honest enough to vote against a resolution stating that the President was born in Hawaii.

When The Press Corps Attacks

The White House Press Corps has had it. They're tired of the games, the evasions, the disrespect. They will boldly stand up for their profession and not hold back any more. Now the truth can be told. They will ask the penetrating, uncomfortable questions that no Press Secretary wants to hear.

They are going to finally call out the Administration for their lies in the run-up to Iraq!

No, scratch that, they're going to be pissy about Robert Gibbs walking in 20 minutes late to a briefing.

As the daily press briefing began this afternoon at 2:07pmET, several members of the White House press corps spoke up to press secretary Robert Gibbs about his tardiness.

FishbowlDC reports that the briefing began about 20 minutes after the two minute warning was given and that ABC's Jake Tapper "had taken charge with two visits to the Lower Press office to complain during the long wait."

By the time Gibbs arrived, members of the press corps could be heard complaining saying things like, "it irritates everybody here."

We hear the late briefings are a pattern, and that it was not an issue during the Bush administration.

On one level, reporters have deadlines, and this particular breed of reporters needs Gibbs to do their job. So fine. On another level, Gibbs was apparently late this time because he was talking to the President about an issue sure to come up in the briefing. Also, of all the things to finally blow their stack about, the press corps reaches their limit on punctuality? Lie to them, fine, just don't make them sit in an air-conditioned room for an extra five minutes. Show some respect for the office like George W. Bush did.

By the way, if Gibbs were prompt, maybe the press would have more time for scintillating, piercing questions like this.

MS. ROMANO: The teleprompter changed last night.

MR. GIBBS: Mm-hmm.

MS. ROMANO: What was that about that? It's a big jumbotron now.

MR. GIBBS: You know can I tell you this?

MS. ROMANO: Yes.

MR. GIBBS: I am absolutely amazed that anybody in America cares about who the President picks at a news conference or the mechanism by which he reads his prepared remarks. You know, I guess America is a wonderful country.

MS. ROMANO: You're saying this is all Washington Beltway stuff?

MR. GIBBS: I don't even know if it's that. I don't think I should implicate the many people that live in Washington.

MR. GIBBS: No, I you know, I don't think the President let me just say this: My historical research has demonstrated that the President is not the first to use prepared remarks nor the first to use a teleprompter.

I'm all for a vigorous press fighting for their rights to access, but when they continually take their cues from Matt Drudge headlines, isn't Gibbs' tardiness a virtue and not a vice?

Respect Is Earned

The scribblers from the White House Press Corps have dropped their teacups and opened windows for air after the vicious, uncouth attack on their dear friend Dick Cheney by Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. Rick Klein, chief towel-washer at ABC's The Note (they still print that?), exclaimed "Wow—we’re talking about the former vice president here." NBC's First Read (Facebook to The Note's MySpace) tut-tutted about the return of "petty political squabbling." And Chip Reid, bravely bold Chip Reid, after choking back tears and bolstered by the support of his fellow Villagers, stood up to that horrible bully and gave him a piece of his mind (hopefully he has some left):

Reid: Can I ask you, when you referred to the former Vice President, that was a really hard-hitting, kind of sarcastic response you had. This is a former Vice President of the United States. Is that the attitude—is that the sanctioned tone toward the former Vice President of the United States from this White House now?

The Village is rising in solidarity to defend and protect that most fragile of egos, Dick Cheney. Because they have respect for the institutions and the office, you see.

Slightly less remarked-upon than the honor of St. Dick is yet another verdict on the torture that he directed and authorized while sitting in that office. I know in the Village you can earn respect without being respectable, but this fake outrage over a one-line insult when prisoners around the world were beaten, strapped naked to cots, suffocated by water, dragged around by collars and confined into a small box, to just name a few techniques, at the behest of THE SAME GUY THE PRESS IS DEFENDING, is a little tough to take.

With the help of the American trauma surgeon, Abu Zubaydah's captors nursed him back to health. He was moved at least twice, first, reportedly, to Thailand; then, he believes, to Afghanistan, probably Bagram. In a safe house in Thailand the interrogation began:

I woke up, naked, strapped to a bed, in a very white room. The room measured approximately [13 feet by 13 feet]. The room had three solid walls, with the fourth wall consisting of metal bars separating it from a larger room. I am not sure how long I remained in the bed. After some time, I think it was several days, but can't remember exactly, I was transferred to a chair where I was kept, shackled by [the] hands and feet for what I think was the next 2 to 3 weeks. During this time I developed blisters on the underside of my legs due to the constant sitting. I was only allowed to get up from the chair to go [to] the toilet, which consisted of a bucket. Water for cleaning myself was provided in a plastic bottle.

I was given no solid food during the first two or three weeks, while sitting on the chair. I was only given Ensure [a nutrient supplement] and water to drink. At first the Ensure made me vomit, but this became less with time.

The cell and room were air-conditioned and were very cold. Very loud, shouting type music was constantly playing. It kept repeating about every fifteen minutes twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes the music stopped and was replaced by a loud hissing or crackling noise.

The guards were American, but wore masks to conceal their faces. My interrogators did not wear masks.

During this first two to three week period I was questioned for about one to two hours each day. American interrogators would come to the room and speak to me through the bars of the cell. During the questioning the music was switched off, but was then put back on again afterwards. I could not sleep at all for the first two to three weeks. If I started to fall asleep one of the guards would come and spray water in my face [...]

Two black wooden boxes were brought into the room outside my cell. One was tall, slightly higher than me and narrow. Measuring perhaps in area [3 1/2 by 2 1/2 feet by 6 1/2 feet high]. The other was shorter, perhaps only [3 1/2 feet] in height. I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room. I was also repeatedly slapped in the face....

I was then put into the tall black box for what I think was about one and a half to two hours. The box was totally black on the inside as well as the outside.... They put a cloth or cover over the outside of the box to cut out the light and restrict my air supply. It was difficult to breathe. When I was let out of the box I saw that one of the walls of the room had been covered with plywood sheeting. From now on it was against this wall that I was then smashed with the towel around my neck. I think that the plywood was put there to provide some absorption of the impact of my body. The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury.

Dick Cheney attended the principals' meeting where these techniques were approved. And given the timeline of events, and Abu Zubaydah's testimony, we can divine that he was a guinea pig, an experiment, a test subject for torture.

"I was told during this period that I was one of the first to receive these interrogation techniques, so no rules applied. It felt like they were experimenting and trying out techniques to be used later on other people."

This article makes clear, then, that about two and a half months after he first woke up in US custody--so probably shortly after mid-June 2002--the US was experimenting on Abu Zubaydah, testing out various forms of torture to see which worked best and left the fewest marks.

Understand what this means: the torturers were conducting their experiments on Abu Zubaydah before John Yoo wrote up an OLC memo authorizing torture (hell--Yoo may have excluded those methods they had decided were ineffective and that my be why they told Abu Zubaydah there were no rules). The torturers were conducting their experiments with the intimate involvement of those back at the White House getting briefed and approving of each technique. And the torturers were being videotaped doing so.

You can put aside, for only this moment, the fact that Cheney helped to break the global economy and has no explanation for it. Or Katrina or Iraq or Valerie Plame or the energy task force or the allegations of an executive assassination ring that reported only to him. This is a man who presided over the experimentation of human beings.

That is who the Village has decided is worthy of respect.

The Winner And Still Champion

The great unraveling of the GOP continued apace today. Within 24 hours, RNC Chair Michael Steele criticized Rush Limbaugh, calling him an “entertainer” whose show is “incendiary” and “ugly"; Limbaugh fired back by questioning Steele's leadership of a "sad-sack" party and strongly intimating that no conservative should ever give a dime to the GOP; and then, after initially refusing to apologize, Steele went ahead and sank to his knees:

“My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.” [...]

“I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. "It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not."

“I’m not going to engage these guys and sit back and provide them the popcorn for a fight between me and Rush Limbaugh,” Steele added. “No such thing is going to happen. … I wasn’t trying to slam him or anything.”

Boy, the Republican Party has gotten itself in quite a pickle, hasn't it? They know Limbaugh is box-office poison for everyone except the clueless dead-enders ("Only talk radio with its emphasis on Socratic debate over raw emotionalism and with Mr. Limbaugh in the driver’s seat has escaped the left’s clutches of pure media dominance."), but they know that any criticism of him will lose them all of their support among the dwindling remnants of the base. And the Democratic Party has a new standing answer to all of this back and forth.

I think maybe the best question, though, is for you to askindividual Republicans whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend. Do they want to see the president's economic agenda fail? I bet there are a lot of guests on television today and maybe into tomorrow that can let America know whether they agree with what Rush Limbaugh said this weekend.

If the country weren't going completely to hell right now, this would be delicious. You have a major political party trapped in a death spiral, reduced to sputtering nonsense about socialism, and seemingly destined to lose the support of the public for a generation.

Americans identifying themselves as Democrats outnumber those who say they are Republicans by 10 percentage points, the largest gap in party identification in 24 years.

The gap has widened significantly since President George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004, when it was a mere 3 percentage points. But by the time Mr. Bush left office in January, less than a quarter of Americans approved of his performance.

These days, 38 percent of Americans say they are Democrats, 28 percent call themselves Republicans, and another 29 percent identify as independents, according to an average of national polls conducted last year by The New York Times and CBS News.

Whether President Obama is able expand that gap to favor his party will probably depend mostly on Americans under the age of 30 who have yet to form strong partisan ties.

I wonder what they're all thinking of the guy who said he wants Obama, for whom they voted in record numbers, to fail. The guy who leads the opposition party.

...This is good stuff from DNC Chair Tim Kaine:

"I was briefly encouraged by the courageous comments made my counterpart in the Republican Party over the weekend challenging Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican Party and referring to his show as 'incendiary' and 'ugly.' However, Chairman Steele's reversal this evening and his apology to Limbaugh proves the unfortunate point that Limbaugh is the leading force behind the Republican Party, its politics and its obstruction of President Obama's agenda in Washington. Just this weekend, Rush Limbaugh repeated his claim that he is rooting for the President to fail. The last time Rush Limbaugh said he wanted the President to fail, virtually every single Republican in Congress followed his lead and voted against the President's plan to create or save 3.5 million jobs.

"As Congress works to pass the President's budget, Republicans need to stop following divisive figures like Rush Limbaugh, stop apologizing to him and put aside the failed politics of the past so we can put our economy back on track, reform our health care system, break our dependence on foreign oil, improve our schools, and lay the foundation for long-term growth in the 21st Century."

Embedded Class Warriors

In Gary Kamiya's article on the death of newspapers that I cited the other day, he lamented that the "ideal of journalistic objectivity and fairness" would be a casualty of the decline of print journalism and news reporting.

I don't know if I agree with that. First of all, the "ideal of objectivity" is a relatively recent phenomenon - newspapers were house organs for party politics, and then perhaps more ideologically rigid and powerful, right up through the Hearst era. And to this day, I'm not sure if this ideal is anything more than a facile hope than an actual practice. Human beings have feelings and beliefs and those show up in the context of what they write. They are shaped by their perspectives. And on the subject of economics, their perspective is from the perch of the upper class, particularly those media celebrities who pretend they are men and women of the people, but who aren't good enough actors to hide that they don't want to see their taxes go up under the Obama budget.

Barack Obama has proposed a budget that, among other things, would reduce taxes on over 90 percent of the population and increase taxes on around 2 percent of the population. Flipping through the Sunday talk shows, it’s striking to see how uniformly wealthy media celebrities think it makes sense to characterize this is a “tax increase” or “raising taxes” and to leap immediately to a discussion of what the impact of these “higher taxes” will be. I think that the majority of people whose taxes are set to go down might be more interested in learning about the impact of lower taxes.

We've seen this all weekend, both on the air and in print. The phrase "class warfare" is thrown around liberally. The perspective of the 2 percent who would see their taxes rise is given far more exposure than the perspective of the 90 percent who would see those taxes fall. Even while the LA Times article strives for balance and does give room to the economic argument that reducing inequality often leads to prosperity, the tone of the article is that class warfare is being waged and the burden of proof is on Obama to explain why the wealthy have to get gouged.

This is why I don't really believe the argument that Rick Santelli's rant was a pre-planned scam (though there's certainly a lot of evidence and I wouldn't be surprised) - or rather, the argument that it HAD to be, that there is no other explanation. Santelli and his ilk have a particular perspective - they are media stars with a stake in the outcome. I don't see anyone saying that Chip Reid and his pals' questioning of Robert Gibbs the other day was pre-planned. It's just the way they think. They want to keep their money.

Reid: On jobs, which is the big complaint up on Capitol Hill right now from Republicans, that this plan is a job-killer. I mean, the $787 billion plan was all about jobs, more than anything else. And now you have a plan in place that -- how can you possibly tax people making people over $250,000 something like $667 billion over the next ten years and not have a downward effect on jobs?

Gibbs: Well, Chip, how did it work in 1994 and 1995 and 1996 and 1997?

Reid: Well, I guess the argument would be, imagine if they didn't have those taxes... how much better it would have been.

Gibbs: Well, isn't it interesting that there's always some little slip? ... There isn't a member of Congress, if they were to file a single-taxpayer form, who makes above $200,000 a year.

Jake Tapper: There are a lot of millionaires up there.

Gibbs: Well, that's true, but not on their income. I mean, I think it's interesting as people listen to those complaining about some aspects of the budget, I think it's just interesting to note. I think the President was pretty clear on Tuesday. We are talking about people who earn in excess of a quarter of a million dollars a year.

Reid: And a huge percentage of those people are small business owners.

Gibbs: Some of them are, sure. Some of them are big business owners. Some of them are home run hitters in Major League Baseball. Some of them run kickoffs back for a living. Some of them are the President of the United States.

Q (off mike): -- create jobs?

Gibbs: Certainly some of them, that's what their job is. But I would reject this overall premise that when we're asking for tax fairness from the American people, that this is going to kill jobs. I guess if I follow the logic of the Republicans on Capitol Hill, how do you explain last month's unemployment figures? (Pause.) Under current tax rates? 550,000 jobs.

Reid: (Long pause) It's a unique moment.

Gibbs: (Laughs heartily) Apparently, it always is.... The president ran specifically on the promises that are contained in what he believes is a blueprint and a vision for our future. And that's what the the American people, that's the result they rendered in November [...]

Question: Critics of the budget blueprint that has been put out today charge that this is a form of wealth redistribution. Even the New York Times in its front page story, fourth paragraph, talks about the idea of wealth redistribution. How do you respond to that?

Gibbs: The same way I did to the other questions: that the president campaigned on explicitly promising that he would cut taxes for 95% of working Americans if he was elected president. We did that in the reinvestment and recovery plan, and those tax cuts are also contained within this budget. The president also said that for families that make more than a quarter of a million dollars, $250,000, are likely to see their tax rates revert back to the way they were for most of the 90s. That's also in this budget. The President believes we have a plan that will lead to long term economic growth, sustained long term economic growth, while making those important investments. That's what this budget blueprint does, that's what he campaigned on, instituting fairness -- more fairness in our system, and that's what he's done.

As Sean Quinn noted one reporter saying after the briefing, "Did you notice all the questions about taxes came from reporters making over $250,000 a year, especially the TV guys?"

Jamison Foser tackled this today, especially the way in which the media acted like this was a brand new idea and not a central part of the President's campaign platform:

What sparked this sudden concern about "class warfare"? President Obama indicated that in order to fund things like health care, the very wealthiest Americans (individuals who make more than $200,000 and families making more than $250,000) might have to pay slightly more in taxes, via the expiration of President Bush's tax cuts for those earners. Under this plan, the wealthiest Americans (again, those making more than $200,000) would be subject to the same income tax rate they paid in the 1990s -- when, it should be remembered, the rich got richer and the economy did quite well.

If this plan -- raising taxes slightly on people who make more than $200,000 a year in order to pay for things like health care for people who don't -- sounds familiar, it's because Obama campaigned on it for roughly two years. Conservatives, amplified by the news media, ridiculed it with labels like "socialism" and "class warfare" and used all kinds of scary rhetoric. And the American people voted for it anyway.

So it's a bit odd to see all this media angst over the idea that Barack Obama's plans to do something he said he would do -- and something the American public supported.

The class war has always been one-sided - there are those with enough money and power to have a voice in the debate, and those who don't. And the media's position in this debate is squarely on the side of the rich, because it's not only the sole perspective they hear, it's the sole perspective they have.

Is There Anyone Worse Than Alan Colmes?

Here Robert Gibbs is going along with the perfect response to Sean Hannity's Ayers obsession, asking if Hannity is an anti-Semite because he had a known anti-Semite as the centerpiece of his smear job show on Barack Obama, and Alan Colmes throws the lifeline:



Hannity is bobbing and weaving, knowing that he's caught, hiding behind this idea that he's a "journalist" and he talks to a lot of people with whom he disagrees, which is completely besides the point because he made this Andy Martin guy the centerpiece of the show and completely agrees with his thoughts about Obama... and along comes Colmes, saying "Sean is not an anti-Semite."

That's not the point, Alan. The point is how guilt by association is simply idiotic. And the thing is, I've heard Colmes use the same kind of logic on his radio show. But I guess Hannity was feeling too much heat, and somebody in the booth zapped Colmes and told him to do his duty as the Fox News "liberal" lickspittle.

Pathetic.