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In an interview with The Hill, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs unloaded on progressives for their bitchin’ about the administration’s perceived shortcomings.
The Hill: During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.
“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”
The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”
Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: “They wouldn’t be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president.”
As to be expected, Gibbs’ remarks set the left side of the blogosphere ablaze. By midday, Gibbs was backtracking:
I watch too much cable, I admit. Day after day it gets frustrating. Yesterday I watched as someone called legislation to prevent teacher layoffs a bailout -- but I know that's not a view held by many, nor were the views I was frustrated about.
So what I may have said inartfully, let me say this way -- since coming to office in January 2009, this White House and Congress have worked tirelessly to put our country back on the right path. Most importantly, to dig our way out of a huge recession and build an economy that makes America more competitive and our middle class more secure. Some are frustrated that the change we want hasn't come fast enough for many Americans. That we all understand.
But in 17 months, we have seen Wall Street reform, historic health care reform, fair pay for women, a recovery act that pulled us back from a depression and got our economy moving again, record investments in clean energy that are creating jobs, student loan reforms so families can afford college, a weapons system canceled that the Pentagon didn't want, reset our relationship with the world and negotiated a nuclear weapons treaty that gets us closer to a world without fear of these weapons, just to name a few. And at the end of this month, 90,000 troops will have left Iraq and our combat mission will come to an end.
Even so, we will continue to work each day on the promises and commitments that the President made traveling all over this country for two years and produce the change we know is possible.
In November, America will get to choose between going back to the failed policies that got us into this mess, or moving forward with the policies that are leading us out.
So we should all, me included, stop fighting each other and arguing about our differences on certain policies, and instead work together to make sure everyone knows what is at stake because we've come too far to turn back now.
Robert Gibbs is such a tool. There was no need for him to apologize to the “Professional Left” (aka the far left progressives), the reason why is because the "Professional Left" is just like those crazy battered women who refuse to leave abusive relationships. Sure they are hopping mad about what he said, but we all know that come 2012 these folks will return to the polls in droves if it meant hearing “Madame President Palin” for the next eight years.
The “Professional Left” may want an even more progressive agenda and will grumble mightily about the lack of one, but their absolute hatred of the right pretty much insures that they will come back to the fold, no matter how much they are abused today. Perhaps Obama realizes this too. It would explain why he has repeatedly thrown some members of his base under the bus.
Via: Memeorandum
Via: The Hill
Via: The Plum Line