Obama on Cleanup Duty
Diplomatic demands overseas can't hold a candle to the PR maneuvering he has to do in the wake of his top advisors
AP
Biden and Emanuel: the president would like a word with you.
Poor President Obama. He's trying to take care of important things like, oh, making sure Russia doesn't blow up the world and saying stern things about the situation in Honduras, while his top advisers stateside keep running off at the mouth about important domestic issues.
The trouble begins, as ever, with Joe Biden. On Sunday, the Vice President confessed to George Stephanopoulos that the administration had "misread" the economy and underestimated what a nightmare the near future was going to be:
"The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there ... There was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited. Now, that doesn't -- I'm not -- it's now our responsibility."
So Obama had to go on the teevee and explain that "misread" wasn't exactly the word to use, since it implies "a failure to read correctly." A better word would be, hmm... "had incomplete information." Yes, because back when the administration and Congress were developing the stimulus package, there was a real shortage of statistical numbers to be seen about the economy!
"I would actually -- rather than say misread, we had incomplete information," President Obama told NBC News' Chuck Todd. "What we always knew was that a) this recession was gonna be deep, and b) it was gonna last for a while."
Note to Biden: never speak about the economy again.
Moving on to chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who just a few months ago made all the liberals mad by saying that the administration wouldn't prosecute former Bush officials for all that torture stuff. His latest offense to liberals: declaring that the one thing they really really care about, health care policy-wise, might not be a non-negotiable after all.
It is more important that health-care legislation inject stiff competition among insurance plans than it is for Congress to create a pure government-run option, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said."The goal is to have a means and a mechanism to keep the private insurers honest," he said in an interview. "The goal is non-negotiable; the path is" negotiable.
Well, that was not very politic, given how Obama campaigned on a public health care option and repeatedly declared his love for this thing. So the president once again had to "clarify" the remarks of his chief of staff and explain how even though it sounded like the administration's position had changed, it really hadn't.
The only thing was, he didn't come out and say, "we must have a health care reform bill that includes a public option, full stop." Instead he said, basically, "I think health care reform is good."
In the wake of this morning's flap over the public option, President Obama has released a statement reaffirming his support for the policy. "I am pleased by the progress we're making on health care reform and still believe, as I've said before, that one of the best ways to bring down costs, provide more choices, and assure quality is a public option that will force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest," Obama said. "I look forward to a final product that achieves these very important goals. "
So shed a tear for our beleaguered president, who must shake his head with dignified disappointment pretty much any time one of his top guys goes on television. As hard as it is to run a superpower, it's even harder to keep a muzzle on loudmouths like Biden and Emanuel.
Speech communications expert Sara K. Smith writes for NBC and Wonkette.
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Posted Tuesday, Jul 14, 2009 - 1:39 AM CST
