On PBS, Charlie Rose Urges Carville to Praise Obama's Hope and Centrism

James Carville appeared to plug his new book predicting 40 years of Democratic dominance on the Charlie Rose show on PBS Monday night. Since Carville supported Hillary Clinton in the last round of Democratic primaries, he ended up sounding noticeably less enthusiastic than Rose about President Obama’s power to change things. Rose calmly declared that Obama has given the country "Confidence, a sense of esteem, a sense of feeling young again...a sense of feeling that the democratic values the country believed in are intact." He also suggested "this is a centrist government" and Carville agreed.

But first, Carville knocked any "ism" words coming from right-wing talk show hosts:

CHARLIE ROSE: In terms of policy and your sense of the country, is he on the right track?

JAMES CARVILLE: I think he’s on a -- yes. I mean, look, Warren Buffett says he’s on the right track economically. So, I mean, it`s kind of odd, because you’re sitting there, you got Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity all getting -- Is this fascism, is this socialism, we gonna ruin it? And then you got Warren Buffett saying basically I agree with this guy. So I don`t know, if Warren Buffett...

ROSE: America’s leading capitalist –

CARVILLE: Right, so, look, and I don’t think that there’s a lot of dissent among, you know, people who know something about this, that these banks were really in trouble, that there was no demand in the economy, that they had to do something. Now, it does seem like an awful lot of money to me from where I sit, and how we bring this debt...

Rose then asked Carville about two leftists he met in the green room (who did not appear in the Monday show), and what Carville learned:

ROSE: You just sat here in the green room, I assumed, and listened to a conversation between two people who were looking at the president and America from the left.

CARVILLE: Right. Right.

ROSE: But they were basically arguing the president is not doing enough and that, you know, that sort of their -- that this is a centrist government which is saving Wall Street.

JAMES CARVILLE: Well, I guess it is a centrist government. People, again, people, some people claim it’s a socialist government and some people claim it’s a fascist government. But it does -- and it has, I mean, they didn’t let the banks go down. And the most elegant thing that President Bush ever said is this whole sucker could go down if we don`t do this. I think if the sucker goes down, the consequences are pretty enormous.

Rose tried to argue that we may quickly learn that all the worrying about Obama’s inexperience may look silly if he succeeds. Pay special attention to Rose suggesting Obama "owns the economy" now:

What does this do to the idea of experience? I mean, if this president, with his popularity, is on his way towards a successful presidency, if in fact he now owns the economy, if he can see us through a recovery and a successful presidency, does that say we`ve been wrong about the necessity of experience to the level that we expected?

Finally, as Rose declared Obama has changed politics, Carville expressed doubt that it’s changed all that much:

ROSE: How do you think Obama`s changed politics? The president has changed politics.

CARVILLE: I don't know -- I don`t know that he has. I think he's got people -- he's changed the way people look at the country. They'd become more optimistic about the country. You know, I don't -- the culture of Washington, I don't know if it’s very much changed. It seems to me to be pretty intractable. And you know, the Republicans don’t, you know, the sort of partisan Republicans don`t much like him. The Democrats love him. The people in the middle tend to like him pretty good. He's got -- for now, he’s got, you know, high approval ratings. But I think he has -- the one thing is, he`s changed the way the country looks at itself, and that`s a real magnificent achievement.

ROSE: Confidence, a sense of esteem, a sense of feeling young again...

CARVILLE: Right.

ROSE: ... a sense of feeling that the democratic values the country believed in are intact.

CARVILLE: Right. And people feel like he's something different and something new. And how different and new he is remains to be seen, but at least people feel that way.

When Democrats win the White House, PBS hosts are giddy at how the country feels young again and "democratic values" are intact.