Team Obama moves from tough talk to partial surrender (then tries to take some of it back).
September 13, 2011 10:35 AM: ‘It’s not an a la carte menu’ — Team Obama says it wants the whole jobs bill passed.
9/13/11 12:41 PM ET Updated: 9/13/11 01:50 PM ET Obama Would Sign Parts Of Jobs Bill, Push For Rest:
The Obama White House is revising its initial unwillingness to negotiate on the president’s job creation plan, saying now that if individual components of the bill came to the president’s desk — as opposed to the bill in its entirety — he would sign them into law.
The new approach opens up the administration to charges that it no longer views the American Jobs Act as a take-it-or-leave-it bill. But in a briefing with reporters Tuesday, senior administration officials insisted President Obama wasn’t backing off his position that he wants the entire bill passed through Congress.
That’s not a ridiculous fallback position, but it is a ridiculous way to undercut your own message in the first few days of the campaign for the bill.
I think what we’re seeing in the actions of the Obama administration is something similar to the right’s use of the media to mold initial public opinion during the first days of a story, regardless of what truth is later revealed. Even after the truth is revealed, a certain fraction of the public will still believe the initial story. In this case, the administration debuts a jobs plan to convince Obama loyalists that the President is doing something, and then revises and guts the plan a week later.
Georgia Works for all! The south is rising again.