Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Wanting the President to fail


Much has been made of Rush Limbaugh's "I want him to fail" statement that he made in regard to President Obama. The statements, which most agree have been taken out of context, have been the fodder for the "Rush is the Republican God" movement coming out of the White House, ably orchestrated by Rahm Emanuel, Paul Begala and the incredibly good-looking James Carville. Funny--I don't remember Rove or Cheney or the Bush White House ginning up talking points memos about Michael Moore. This is Milhousian, don't you think? But I digress.

It seems that Carville suffers from the same brand of "patriotism" that he accuses Rush of being infected with:

[on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001]Just minutes before learning of the terrorist attacks on America, Democratic strategist James Carville was hoping for President Bush to fail, telling a group of Washington reporters: “I certainly hope he doesn’t succeed.”

Carville was joined by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who seemed encouraged by a survey he had just completed that revealed public misgivings about the newly minted president.

“We rush into these focus groups with these doubts that people have about him, and I’m wanting them to turn against him,” Greenberg admitted.

The pollster added with a chuckle of disbelief: “They don’t want him to fail. I mean, they think it matters if the president of the United States fails.”


These remarks were quickly forgotten by the press due in large part to the terrorists attacks which subsequently dominated the news coverage. To be fair:
Minutes later, as news of the terrorist attacks reached the hotel conference room where the Democrats were having breakfast with the reporters, Carville announced: "Disregard everything we just said! This changes everything!"

You don't always see Jimmy backpedal like that, so I guess I'll give him some credit.

Surprising that these long ago quotes haven't received the play in the media that they deserve.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

From the Post:

"...Mark McKinnon, a top adviser in President George W. Bush's campaigns, acknowledged the value of picking a divisive opponent. "We used a similar strategy by making Michael Moore the face of the Democratic Party," he said of the documentary filmmaker."

Rush was clearly taken out of context, and the republicans are the only ones that are capable of this kind of nuance, you know the "you can support the troops without supporting the president" kind.

Did you hear about Bristol and Levi -- I for one am devastated. Wait until your buddy Anne Coulter gets on that story, she really hates single moms!

Small Town Doc said...

The Dems supported our troops?

(paraphrasing)
Kerry: If you make the most of your education, you'll do well. If you don't--you get stuck in Iraq.

Kerry: our soldiers are terrorizing women and children in their homes in the dead of night.

Dick Durbin comparing our troops to Nazis.

Harry Reid: This war is lost.

Howard Dean: The surge is not working.

Murtha: our troops killed innocent civilians in cold blood.

My kind of guys.

Anonymous said...

"There's no Russian word for Freedom"


...can you guess who?

Small Town Doc said...

An almost 25 year old quote by Ronald Reagan has what to do with this post?

You couldn't come up with some Obama statements about earmark reform? Or getting all the troops out of Iraq in six months?

Small Town Doc said...

By the way--Reagan was, of course, wrong, one of the very few times he misspoke in his life.

The word is "freedomskii," although it looks much more impressive in Cyrillic script.

Yeah--I checked with an authority on the Russian language, so I know it's true.