Liberals to Obama: Stop Playing Nice

This post originally appeared on Slate.

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AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais

For liberals, the story of the Obama presidency is a Cave Allegory: When he talks about working with Republicans, it's a sign he's going to cave. They see it in the current fight over extending the Bush tax cuts, where they are certain the president will drop his resistance to a tax-cut extension for everyone, including those in the upper income bracket. "Fight, Don't Cave on Tax Cuts," demands a new ad by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. Moveon.org is also calling on the president to fight and not let himself "get pushed around." This has led to questions about Obama's manhood that have taken the form of a Courtland Milloy analogy based on an injury Obama got playing ball to James Carville's inquisition into whether he had two.

Liberals are angry not just because of Obama's position on tax cuts at a time of increased income inequality. They're irritated because he appears to be set on following the same strategy for the second half of his term that failed in the first half: reaching out to Republicans, getting shot down by a unified GOP, and getting no credit for trying. Outgoing Ohio governor Ted Strickland put it this way in an interview with Sam Stein of the Huffington Post: "I saw what CNN said after that meeting yesterday. ... The president said he should have been willing to work with the GOP earlier. What? After all of this you don't realize these people want to destroy you and your agenda? How many times do you have to be, you know, slapped in the face?"

Rep. Paul Ryan may be the featured character in the latest chapter of the liberal history of this presidency--call it How Obama Is Getting Schooled by Republicans. Paul Krugman calls Ryan a "flimflam man" for his ideas about balancing the budget, but last January, when Obama met with House Republicans, he called the Wisconsin lawmaker a "pretty sincere guy" whose "roadmap" for balancing the budget was a "serious proposal." This was seen as an attempt to kindle a little bipartisan goodwill. Today I gave Ryan, who will be chairman of the budget committee in January, an opportunity to return the favor. At a breakfast with reporters hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, I asked him whether he thought the lack of bipartisan cooperation during Obama's first two years was the president's fault alone. Debates about the past are tiresome, but as with budgets, it's instructive to measure each side's baseline view in order to measure future behavior. If they show a little give, they might have it in them to give in the big way Ryan and others say they'll have to in order to get anything done.

Obama had said he could have done more to work with Republicans. Did the GOP share any of the blame?

"No, it's all the Democrats' fault," Ryan said. "We're great. We have halos over our heads," he added sarcastically.

"How do you want me to answer that?" he asked. I told him that truthfully would be fine.

He seemed boxed-in. Even if he believed Republicans shared some blame, he couldn't admit it. "They had to make a decision," he said, referring to the president and Democratic leaders. "Do we work with these Republicans and do we meet in the middle? But we don't have to because we have all the votes. They made a choice to go it on their own, and that's when we had to protect ourselves."

He said he tried to reach out to the White House early in the administration on a health care plan. "We sent a plan to the president, we sent them letters, we called people, we kept trying to talk to them," he said. "It was just a thud." Of the White House, he said, "They don't talk to us."

So Republicans didn't share at all in the blame? I asked, just to be clear. Ryan repeated his answer.

Now, presented with this anecdote, liberals will have a predictable--and not unreasonable--response: And you want to try to work with these people, Mr. President? Observers can disagree over how much blame Obama deserves for the ill will between the parties. But no fair-minded person can think the blame is Obama's alone. Certainly the public doesn't think that. In polls, Republican congressional leaders are more unpopular than Democrats.

Ryan spoke of the need to compromise in the grand budget negotiations to come. He said he didn't want to be doctrinaire:"If you're getting an inch take the inch, even if you're not getting a mile." He also chuckled at the idea of refusing to increase the debt ceiling, something the RNC chairman and some in the Tea Party support. But even if he feels as though he's being reasonable, he's not likely to look that way to Obama's supporters. If he and GOP leaders can't accept a speck of responsibility for the lack of cooperation, then maybe Obama's liberal critics are right. Any deal with these guys is a trap.

More from Slate:

Why the First Amendment won't necessarily protect WikiLeaks.
How not to solve the European debt crisis.
If Democrats are the big spenders, why do Republican states get the money?

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John Dickerson is a CBS News political analyst. He is also Slate's chief political correspondent and author of On Her Trail. You can also follow him on Twitter here.

[abhorlibs]

I read the MSM network news at their websites every single day, and see how they slant headlines and coverage to the left. But I wait, and wait, for a single well-written article to review all the good things that have happened for America since pelosi, reid and the dems took over leadership of government in 2007. Maybe I missed those articles because they would necessarily be quite short. Perhaps some of the many obamaoists in this forum could help out here, maybe concentrate on the bipartisanship, or the successful economy, hmm?

[padgettba]

Being rich doesn't mean that you have been productive. Usually it means you started with more. Often it means you have underpaid a lot of workers, gotten unfair tax breaks, bought your congressman and generally lied, cheated, stole.

[jschmidt27]

So in your definition businesses cannot be succesful unless they are evil. I believe there are many business owners who would agree with you. The small businesses don't have the army of lawyers and accounts to be evil. And there are many small businesses that were started by regular people who worked hard to grow it while the government took the hard earned money and squandered it. A strong business means a strong economy.

[abbe91]

jshmidt,

padgettba didn't say that. Look at the words : usually, often ...
Now, when you think how Prescott Bush got rich ...

[robbyr2]

A assume you're talking about the Affordable Care Act, that was so filled with Republican ideas- the insurance pools, the other parts of the (by the way) successful Romneycare, the insurance mandate (so the young and stupid have to buy insurance)- that most Democrats had to hold their nose to vote for it...
The Party of No has made it clear. Unless they are getting the graft, the country can go to you know where- they don't care.
Bipartisanship usually only works when both parties care about what's best for the country. Unfortunately, it is working against the country only in Iraq and Afghanistan...

[jschmidt27]

By the party of no you most assuredly mean the Democrats. The Democrats certainly did have to bribe their own members and the unions to get the healthcare bill passed. It is a bad bill as it only limits the payments, doesn't control costs, and will result in limiting services.

[abbe91]

Look at the party of NO at work.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/04/politics/main7116715.shtml

[jschmidt27]

"you lost, we won" I think is how the phrase goes as Obama once told the Republicans. Well things have changed. Now if the Democrats can not be the party of no, perhaps some decent legislation may be passed.

[abbe91]

They would be right to take a page of the republican book, for once.
Repealing the heathcare reform. What a joke they are.

[abbe91]

Look at the party of NO at work.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/04/politics/main7116715.shtml

[cbs4111]

America to Obama: PAY ATTENTION TO THE ELECTION RESULTS.

[bulldogss]

OBAMA is a brilliant man.. Soooo now i am going for common sense Palin. Tell me where i lose??==Last Latte elitist i vote for.

[jschmidt27]

Obama would be a great college graduation speaker, as long as there is a teleprompter.However his leadership ability is nil.

[kevjustice]

if his telepromter does't work he could always write notes on his hand like somebody else did.

[rplat]

Alright "liberals' let's stop playing nice . . . now what's your next move.

[Jaylah54]

He's not "playing nice." He's a closet Republican.

[Tiddah]

We are all americans and we must work together. It's like Lincoln said a nation divided will fall. America is going through a tough period right now. I pray that we can get this country moving in the right direction again. To unhappy liberals: Obama cannot do it on his own, no one can, he has to have help. The elected officials, you know the law makers have to help pull this country back up again.

[RickChicago1]

I think that this starts by boycotting Liberal Media. If it was not for the Liberal Media the Lies that are necessary for Liberalism to succeed can not gain traction. Millions of people have already boycotted the nightly news of the big 3 networks (Lost 55% of their nightly viewers in just the last 5 years) however we need to crush the Liberal lies at their source so that the people who own those businesses are never able to force these lies down people's throats again. Without a defeat of the Liberal Media you will always have these voices spreading half-truths and advocating what is really nothing more than a failed ideology.

[Lear987]

America has fallen and it can't get up?beginning around 250 years ago (it didn't suddenly just happen in 1776) individual Americans came together to form a nation, conceived to provide liberty and justice (i.e., fairness) for all. The sacrifices made to achieve the two defy description. Through civil and world wars and the fight for civil rights (again?i.e., fairness) Americans willingly laid down their lives for the greater, common good. And to what end have their sacrifices brought us? We are a people of great pride, but little shame. We are a nation where the family matters not?..just the individual, while it has been the strength of the family that ensured the success and provided the hope for future generations. We are a nation that rather than embracing the value of our own beliefs, moderates its opinions to accommodate the beliefs of others even though they offend the two principles for which those that have gone before us have sacrificed so much?liberty and justice. I am near the end of my time here on earth, but despite my selfish prospect for relief, I fear for the young as history proves that it is calamity that corrects such a situation.

[RickChicago1]

hillcoguy

With all due respect let me offer this definition of "fair"

"Fair" is an arbitrary concept designed to be the vehicle for taking from the producers who have worked hard for years, risked all on a business and if it is successful then it is not fair that they have all the rewards. They should have made less money, paid their employees more,and paid more taxes to support those who have slept late, not worked and have stood around waiting for a handout.