Obama's Failed Meeting

What happened at that "meeting" with the President yesterday on this Wall Street bailout bill.  Well, the desperate attempts of Obama and the Democrats to "spin" that meeting should give you an idea.

 

Obama did not want to come to Washington  Everyone knows that.  McCain forced his hand.  Obama wanted to stand on the sidelines, spouting vague "principles", as he has done all of his life.  He then could claim any credit at the end, and avoid any blame.  But McCain had come to Washington, and Obama and the Democrats could not afford to let McCain seem to be in charge.

 

Therefore, Democrats spent all yesterday asserting there was a "deal" already done, to set it up for Obama.  Democrats knew that the House Republicans had not signed off on a deal, but Democrats thought they could use Senate Republicans and President Bush (not to mention the sycophantic, Democratic media) to set up this meeting with the President as a triumph for Obama, and to shut out McCain. 

 

Obama went into the meeting primed to "take charge".  That is the real reason McCain said little.  Democrats never intended for McCain to have an opportunity to say much. 

 

Obama had received some sort of notes, while he was on the way to Washington, about the House Republican position.  Obama knew the plan was for him to take immediate charge of the meeting. 

 

Therefore, Obama (figuring he knew what Paulson would say, and Paulson--corrupt as he is--might even have told Obmaa ahead of time) immediately jumped in and suggested that the House Republicans were challenging the essence of the Paulson plan, with Obama giving a partisan view of the House Republican position.  Then Obama tried to put the House Republicans on the spot by aggressively asking Paulson what he thought of this--thinking to intimidate the House Republicans, under pressure from Paulston, the President, and Senate Republicans, to give in to the carefully orchestrated Democratic plan (which had been set up all day for this moment).  The whole idea was to keep McCain out of the discussion, and set Obama up as the guy who came in and closed the deal.

 

It backfired.  The House Republicans fought back.  The situation quickly deteriorated into yelling, as the Democrats like Harry Reid and Barney Frank jumped in to try to intimidate the House Republicans.  It went downhill from there.  McCain, as intended by Obama, never had a chance to really have constructive input. But the Democratic setup had failied.  Obama had failed.  His strong arm attempt to control the meeting had backfired.  What was he to do?

 

Obama and the Democrats did what leftist Democrats always do (these days).  They went to the media to "spin" the failure of the meeting as being all McCain's fault, in conspiracy with the House Republicans, even though it had been Obama's attempt to "take over" which had broken down the meeting. 

 

Would the meeting have failed anyway?  Who knows.  But the cynical attempt to bulldoze the House Republicans, and shut out McCain, failed.  Obama failed.  Obama was more responsible than anyone else for the failure of the meeting, because he deliberately had set it up to be Obama's meeting (thinking the "deal" could be pushed through). 

 

Do you understand now how Democrats try to make things appear almost the opposite of reality?  Now you could argue that McCain should have been out, like Obama, doing the media rounds.  However, McCain thought it was more important to work on the substance of the situation to get a better "deal". 

 

I don't know if McCain can win by continuing to let Obama control the "spin", while McCain stays almost silent (aggravated, of course, by the mainstream media policy of pretty much ignoring McCain).  That does not change reality, and the reality is that Obama failed at the meeting because he, and the Democrats, played politics all day setting up Obama for a grandstand play.

In other words, Obama and the Democrats never intended the metting to be a "negotiation".  They intended the meeting to be a case of the democat plan being rammed down the throats of the House Republicans before they knew what hit them, with Obama getting the credit.  Obama failed miserably, and that explainst the later, desperate "spin".