Jon Favreau: Leading From Below

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/03/leading-from-below.html

Leading From Below
by Jon Favreau May 3, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
Memo to everyone lambasting Obama for not getting along with Congress: The president is not all powerful. And he needs help from his supporters. By Jon Favreau.


snip//


Today, a minority of senators can kill bipartisan legislation that is supported by a majority of their colleagues. And they frequently do. In the House, the speaker alone can kill bipartisan legislation that is supported by a majority of his colleagues. And he frequently does. Following some of this country’s worst mass shootings, a Republican senator and a Democratic senator with A ratings from the National Rifle Association authored a gun safety bill requiring criminal background checks that was supported by 90 percent of the American people. If I were a reporter, I’d be more interested in what was wrong with the Congress that refused to pass that bill than the man at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue who relentlessly campaigned for it at more than a dozen events around the country.

But that’s just me. This Congress has so profoundly disappointed the American people that I suppose the real news would be if they ever did anything that even remotely reflected popular will. At this point, getting angry with Congress for failing to legislate seems as useful as yelling at a puppy for peeing on the floor: neither of them knows any better.

This president has played plenty of hardball and softball with members of Congress. I was there when he cut deals and cajoled his way to a health-care victory that 100 years’ worth of Democratic and Republican presidents had sought and failed to achieve. I saw him do the same with the recovery act, and student-loan reform, and Wall Street reform, and “don’t ask, don’t tell”—a legislative legacy that, whether you agree with it or not, already stands tall against any other president’s in recent memory.

snip//

But since the day he announced his run for the presidency, Obama has held a deep and abiding conviction about how change really happens. Yes, it requires leaders who can inspire, and compromise, and build relationships on both sides of the aisle. But it also requires us. It requires an engaged, active citizenry, willing to pressure and push our leaders in the right direction, not just on Election Day, but every day, through emails and phone calls and office visits and town-hall meetings.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/03/leading-from-below.html

[JaneyVee]

1. It's cute how the media blames Obama and ignores the 4+ years of Republicans calling him

a Socialist Muslim Kenyan Communist who's birth certificate is fake and their goal is to make him a one term President while they run ads smearing him & grieving SandyHook moms, but somehow it's Obama's fault for not "reaching out".

Our media is a joke. It's like the gun control debate, blame everyone/everything BUT the guns. Media should feel free to call the Republican party what they really are: Batshit insane religious fundies wrapped up in conspiracy theories who gave up any notion of governing in order to put ideology over country even if it means mass suffering.

[el_bryanto]

2. The thing is - if he is going to lose anyway why not lose fighting for Democratic principles?

Instead of fighting for bi-partisan ship.

Bryant

[treestar]

3. When they go on about the bully pulpit

that's for us. How would a passionate Presidential speech change a congressional mind? That's not even supposed to be the way it is. It is the constituents who can change the congressperson's mind.