ABC’s Bill Weir Wistfully Asks: What Happened to Obama’s ‘Day of Unity’ Inauguration?

Photo of Scott Whitlock.
  • Bookmark and Share

Good Morning America’s Bill Weir on Saturday interviewed Nancy Pelosi and wistfully responded to the House Speaker’s reminiscing about the "stillness" and "silence" of Barack Obama’s inauguration. He cooed, "What happened to that sense? That was such a day of, of unity. You think it's still there?"

After Pelosi assured the weekend anchor that such solidarity still existed, Weir responded, "Even after the town hall meetings and everything that we’ve been through?" Weir certainly seemed to enjoy the January 20, 2009 inauguration. Reporting for World News that day, he memorably asked if "national pride" can "make a freezing day feel warmer?"

He also said of the event: "...From above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity." On November 5, 2008, the morning after Obama’s victory, Weir referred to the previous evening as a "transcendent" night of "communal joy."

Story Continues Below Ad ↓

While interviewing Pelosi on Saturday, he did manage to ask about her leftist policies, but only in relation to how they made the Democrat feel: "When someone refers to you as a San Francisco liberal, how do you take that?"

One of Weir's few challenging moments came when the journalist actually mentioned an awkward press conference at the White House in early October. The GMA host played video of Pelosi seemingly flinching as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid put his arm around her. Weir queried, "And the two displayed some interesting body language after a recent meeting at the White House. What's your relationship like with him? What was that about?"

A transcript of the October 31 segment, which aired at 7:33am EDT, follows:

BILL WEIR: Well, 16 years ago next month, Hillary Clinton gave a 1,000-page document to Congress, a plan to reform this nation's health care system. Well, it died a slow, political death. And this week, Nancy Pelosi presented a 2,000-page document with the same goal. And whether it survives depends largely on Nancy Pelosi, the most very powerful and often the most polarizing woman in the history of American politics. She has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Democrats over the years. So, Nancy Pelosi knows how to host a party and work a room.

HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI [talking to various people.]: Hi, Jody. Thank you all very much for being here.

WEIR: But, on one of the biggest mornings of her career, the guest list is thin.

PELOSI: Can we have the message go out to caucus on the steps?

WEIR: She leads her fellow Democrats out of the Capitol, to unveil their long-awaited health care bill. But missing from this line, are conservative blue dogs who think it’s too expensive and liberal progressives who want a stronger public option.

PELOSI: We are brought to this historic moment for our nation and our families.

WEIR: The bill is a $1 trillion compromise, but you'd never know it, listening to Madam Speaker, who keeps the smile fixed, even when heckled.

[Shots of hecklers with signs attacking health care bill.]

PELOSI: Thank you, insurance companies of America.

WEIR: If we use childbirth as an analogy, where are we? What trimester are we in?

PELOSI: Let me say this: I'm from Maryland. And I'm always talking about horse racing. We're still rounding the bend. Getting ready to go out on the final stretch.

WEIR: Horse trading might be a better analogy because this building runs on closed door bargaining. Favors earned and spent. She learned a little bit about this, as the only daughter of Tommy D’Alessandro, a five term Congressman and long-time mayor of Baltimore. I’ve read that your father kept, was it a favor file?

PELOSI: Yeah.

WEIR: How did that work?

PELOSI: When I was a little girl, I knew who to tell people to call if f they wanted a bed in city hospital or a home in the city projects or- the list goes on.

WEIR: She married her college sweetheart. They moved to San Francisco. And while he made a fortune in business, she raised five children.

PELOSI: My fifth baby was born the week my oldest child turned six. So, they're very close.

WEIR: You spent the '60s pregnant, right?

PELOSI: Yes. And then the ‘70s doing homework.

WEIR: And then, she raised money. In the mansions of Pacific Heights and Nob Hill. Running the state party until she was asked to run at age 47. Ten wins later, the 69-year-old is two raheartbeats away from the presidency.

CONSERVATIVE AD: The Obama/Pelosi plan would cut Medicare by $500 billion and-

WEIR: And a regular in Republican attack ads. Critics of this reform effort are delighted to call this the Pelosi bill. When someone refers to you as a San Francisco liberal, how do you take that?

PELOSI: I don't pay too much attention to it. I find that one of the reasons they do it to try to get my eye off the ball and answer them.

WEIR: After announcing the bill, she spends the day trying to sell it, to lobbyists in person and on the phone. If it passes the House, she's in for another round of negotiations, with her counterpart in the Senate, Harry Reid. [Video of Reid putting his hand on Pelosi and of her flinching. Weir has a laptop and shows Pelosi.] And the two displayed some interesting body language after a recent meeting at the White House. What's your relationship like with him? What was that about?

PELOSI: Well, I think that- Senator Reid is a great leader in the United States Senate. I was more reacting to what he was saying than his arm on my shoulder. He was saying that we're all going to support whatever the President said about troops to Afghanistan, which, well, remains to be seen.

[Taking a tour.]

WEIR: This is it? This is your modest desk right here?

PELOSI: This is it.

WEIR: This is it.

PELOSI: There you go. This is it. We just do what we do. Get rid of it and bring on new work.

WEIR: Just outside her office, the Speaker's balcony, where President Obama took his oath.

PELOSI: I was right there next to the President and what was interesting, was the stillness. People listened. The silence was palpable. It was just such a thing to hear them.

WEIR: What happened to that sense? That was such a day of, of unity. You think it's still there?

PELOSI: I think it’s still there. Oh, sure.

WEIR: Even after the town hall meetings and everything that we’ve been through?

PELOSI: Oh, sure. The town hall meetings were, really, an orchestration. But it's out there, where people who want to stop progress, exploit and hijack the good concerns of people who have legitimate concerns. On any given day, I’ll have people out here chanting or singing or marching or something.

WEIR: Do they get through to you? Does someone standing there yelling something ever make you think, "I should look at that?"

PELOSI: I kind of know what's coming. I always listen. Always receptive. But usually, when people are showing up there, they've taken a position that is already well-known. Well-known to us.

WEIR: And how long do you intend to hold on to this desk and this view? [Laughs.]

PELOSI: You’re like those that say, what do you want to be your legacy? I'm like, not so fast with the legacy.

WEIR: Okay. I'll take that as check back in a few years. Okay.

PELOSI: There you go. That is really up to the American people, maintaining a Democratic majority and my colleagues.

WEIR: Right.

PELOSI: Their vote of confidence. That's not up to me completely.

WEIR: We, of course, discussed the substance of this health care bill and the lack of a more robust public option for those progressives out there. You can read about that at ABCNews.com.

—Scott Whitlock is a news analyst for the Media Research Center.


Comments Policy

All comments are owned by whoever posted them and are subject to our terms of use. They should not be assumed to represent the views of NewsBusters.

Viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.

"Weir referred to the

"Weir referred to the previous evening as a "transcendent" night of "communal joy.""

They don't believe this stuff as much as we think. It's a facade. That's what media is about - it's a facade - you say these things then viewers believe it, they believe rational people think like that, so perhaps THEY should think like that.

We should step back from judging these TV faces & how "crazy lib" they are, and get back to the fact that it's just about influencing the viewers.

___________________________________________________________
Graphical conservative commentary - animations & pictures for posting on forums: http://ubama.org/chu...

PELOSI: I was right there

PELOSI: I was right there next to the President and what was interesting, was the stillness. People listened. The silence was palpable. It was just such a thing to hear them.

WEIR: What happened to that sense? That was such a day of, of unity. You think it's still there?

  Unity my donkey....  What I remember about the inauguration is the classless and vulgar booing of President Bush as he was introduced.  Never has obama ever chided his supporters for exhibiting boorish behavior.  I don't think obama even knows what class is.  How else could he stand before the country and tell us that doctors cut off feet for profit and not have a sense of guilt for such slander?

It's OK to Boo Bush

Didn't you get the memo? You can stick a pitchfork in the belly of a conservative and the left will hail it as reaching across the aisle.

These thugs make me long for the days of dueling. I'd be very busy.

 

“It is almost impossible to distinguish a politician from a gangster.” (Will Durant, 1931)

nolo... Your post reminds

nolo...

Your post reminds me of a great democrat in the Senate I miss very much...Give 'em Hell Zell Miller.

I remember well when he yearned for the days of dueling when he was in an interview with slime-ball tingles.

I'd vote for that man for Prez in a heartbeat...I watched/listened to him in the Senate...there isn't anyone better than he was....and the left despised him...and treated him as such.

'Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea'~Breitbart

What a complete

sled load of poop.

Unity?

This country hasn't been unified in more than sixty years.  We've had bitter fights about race relations, foreign military involvement, sex, Elvis, drugs and on and on for as far back as most of us can remember.

Fifty-one percent of voters don't constitute a mandate, and we are in a big fight for the existence of America as it was conceived initially.

If the sea gulls at the inauguration had possessed any conciousness about the event, they would have s*** on the teleprompters and Nancy Pelosi. She can't be as stupid as she sounds, and has to know that less than half of the people in America are on her side. 

 

Franksam

Great post!

 

Frank... Yeah they

Frank...

Yeah they know...she knows, they all do, they just keep pretending otherwise.

All for show....and wishful thinking.

'Doubling down on stupid is not a particularly good idea'~Breitbart

There was no national pride on 01/20/2009

America commited sewerpipe on Nov. 4th 2008, we must rid this nation of the virus(aka swine flu) called failure mm mm mmm to regain our national pride.

Bill Weir - Idiot!

I think I just threw-up in my mouth!!

"Day of unity"?  I seem to remember almost half the country voted against our esteemed leader.  

 Bill Weir wants to look for a "day of unity", take a look at the country on 9.12.01!

→ Seagulls?

From above, even the seagulls must have been awed by the blanket of humanity.

He might have noted those were ring-billed gulls which are attracted to garbage dumps.

Obviously Weir didn't know the difference, blinded as he was by the magnificence of Obama.

But the gulls were attracted more by the stench than the awesome sight.

LYDSEXICS UNTIE!

Pelosi. ".. govern from the middle.."

That subject line got your attention, did it not? OK, redoing the "interview" here:  

Weir:  When someone refers to you as a San Francisco liberal, how do you take that?

Pelosi: Oh, I take it to heart, because that's exactly who I am. Nothing I say should be taken as what I'm really saying. For example:

CNN Nov. 5, 2008  -- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday called on President-elect Barack Obama to govern from the middle

(:~/ gary

When we were previously

When we were previously divided, the media claimed that it was President Bush who was alienating everyone.

I'm sure President Obama, with Bill Weir's help, will gladly offload that burden to Her Speakerness. 

This President has had almost ten months, how many town halls, and a nationally televised prime-time address, to sell this plan to America.

Whose fault is it, if we're not on board?

I guess the old teleprompter magic isn't what it used to be....

Get a room

A little porn music in the background is all that is missing.  Wonder if they had a cigarette afterward?

A little tip on Bill Weir:

A little tip on Bill Weir: he was the backup sports guy on KABC-TV 7 Los Angeles.  That means that he was the understudy to Rob Fukazaki.  If you're playing 2nd string to that blowhard, it's obvious that you have no talent.  ABC recognized that lack of talent and brought it to GMA.

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered."  -George Best

WEIR: This is it? This is

WEIR: This is it? This is your modest desk right here?

I too, was expecting more of a throne with lots of gold adorning it.

 WEIR: Do they get through to you? Does someone standing there yelling something ever make you think, "I should look at that?"

I think we all know the answer to that one.

 The town hall meetings were, really, an orchestration. (Pelosi)

You keep right on telling yourself that Nancy, right up until you dems are thrown out by the orchestration.

It's all falling apart for...

the poor little libs...

Weir's comment about election night as being a "transcendent" night of "communal joy" is nauseating, and certainly didn't apply to everybody in the country...Weir seems to be forgetting the 47% of us who didn't vote for Obama...I can attest to the fact that there was no "transcendent comunal joy" in my house that night...More like a sense of impending doom, which has turned out to be right on the mark.  

"The problem is not that people are taxed too little...the problem is that government spends too much." ~President Ronald Reagan

PrairieSky

Also, lest we forget, on that same glorious "day of unity", 10's (or even 100's) of thousands chanted throat-ally on the steps of The Capital and the W.H. in the direction of the outgoing President:

"Na na naaaa naaaa.... na na naaaa naaaaaa

Hey hey heeeeeyyyyy

Gooooooooood - byyyyyyyeeeeeee" 

 

Yes, what a unifying day to remember.

 

Are there ANY masculine men

Are there ANY masculine men left in the media. What a simpering, feminine, waste of Y chromosome.

Weir, if you had any real manhood in you, you wouldn't be commiserating with one of the most evil politicians in the country. You'd be asking REAL questions and exposing her for the anti-American she really is.

Man up, Nancy Boy.

A nation cannot be free without a free, unbiased media. We are not free.

Maoist unity

Obama has not changed his affiliation one iota. He still is a communist, why else would he choose so many self avowed communists as his czars? OH, he's a commie alright and he maintains his unity with Marx, Mao, Chavez, Ortega, Castro and China.