Thinkin’bout Stuff

****UPDATE BELOW****

Someone just called me with some interesting information that I have not been able to confirm. She was listening to Rush (the man, not the band) and heard that all of the Dem spinning going on last night and this morning is to cover for what actually happened behind closed doors yesterday.

Apparently, the Dem tactic at the meeting with leaders of both parties was to sit quietly and allow Obama to speak for the Dems as their standard bearer, which makes sense to a degree.

Unfortunately, Obama’s knowledge was limited to emails he had read before the meeting and he was confused, causing quite a mess in the meeting.

If true, and can be confirmed, would certainly paint a different picture than Reid and Dodd have been trying to paint.

If/when I find out more, will either confirm or retract as appropriate.

UPDATE — Here’s more data for you to process and form your own conclusion, from RushLimbaugh.com:

The president, in order to let everybody be heard, deferred to various Democrats, and every one of the Democrats — Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Frank — declined to speak and deferred to Obama. So Obama became the official Democrat spokesman in the meeting. This was to hype Obama’s leadership and presidential aura and so forth. What happened next, the first thing out of Obama’s mouth — Paulson is in the meeting — is he starts ripping the House Republican proposal and asks Paulson what he thinks of it.

This led Boehner and the other Republicans in there to think they have been sandbagged. We found out this morning that Obama had no clue — because he was in transit doing other things, he had no clue — what the House Republican position was. What happened was that on the way to the meeting sometime during the day, Obama’s staff received an e-mail from Treasury Department employees who work for Paulson detailing the House Republican plan. So when the Democrats deferred to Obama, he launched into that. He had no clue what it was. That’s why he asked Paulson for his comments. I don’t know what Paulson said, but this is what led to the fireworks. This is what led to everything breaking down in there. This is why Dingy Harry walked out, ’cause it didn’t work.

It ended up with Obama essentially chairing the meeting, with the meeting falling apart. The president was described as “beleaguered,” trying to regain control of the meeting. McCain didn’t say hardly anything. Everybody was yelling and screaming in there. McCain did not. He said, “We’ve gotta put these differences aside, work together,” you know, typical McCain.  “According to an Obama campaign source…” and this is from the American Spectator blog today. “According to an Obama campaign source, the notes on the Republican position, House Republican position were passed to Obama via senior aides traveling with him who had been e-mailed the document via a current Goldman Sachs employee and Wall Street fundraiser for the Obama campaign. The Obama campaign source said, ‘It was made clear the memo was from friends and it was reliable.’ The memo, which basically briefed Obama on the Republican position…”

You see, Obama did not defend the Democrat position on this. He led off with an attack on the Republican position, as though it was a shock and a surprise, under the auspices that this deal had already been agreed to. When of course there’s no surprise about what House Republicans believe and there’s no surprise what conservatism is. “The memo allowed Obama and his fellow Democrats to box in Republican attendees and essentially took what President Bush had billed as a negotiating meeting off the rails.” Now, “‘Paulson and his team have not acted in good faith for this President or the administration for which they serve,’ says a House Republican leader who was not present at the White House meeting” and told the American Spectator. Paulson — Goldman Sachs — is a Democrat. He’s very close to Chuck Schumer, and obviously close to Obama.

So this whole meeting yesterday essentially was established to show off Obama’s leadership skills and negotiating skills, and he blew it! People who disagree with him, he has no idea how to negotiate with.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 26th, 2008 at 2:37 pm and is filed under Economy, Election 2008, Obama, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.