The Barack-boosters at the website The Obama Diary reproduced a “righteous rant” on Twitter in favor of Obama (and against whiny Democratic "bozos" in Congress) from Michael Grunwald, a former Time reporter now working for Politico (on the magazine side).
“Mini-rant to come, inspired by this accurate @politico story on (my description, not the story's) pathetic Hill D's,” Grunwald wrote. Then came a 15-part pro-Obama rant.
1. So Hill D's "who have been starving for attention from the Obama administration" are delighted that Hillary is promising to change that.
2. These public servants feel "like a neglected stepchild." They hate how Obama "only comes around when he needs something."
3. Translation: Obama only sucks up to them when he needs their support for public policies that he thinks will help the country.
4. It's true that Obama doesn't like chitchatting with attention-starved politicians. It's one of his most human qualities.
5. It's also true that Obama would be more popular on the Hill if he invited congressmen to more parties and generally sucked up to them.
6. Who cares?
7. I can think of zero examples of important public policies stymied by Obama's insufficient care and feeding of insecure Democrats.
8. The stimulus/Obamacare/financial reform passed because he had the votes. Cap-and-trade failed because he didn't. Chitchat was irrelevant.
9. The funniest part was the D's saying Hillary's early suckups are a welcome contrast to Obama's only-when-he-wants-something approach.
10. She wants something!
11. I could rant about this all day. But it really seems like a lot of members of Congress don't understand how the modern Congress works.
12. And the more I think about it, the more I get why Obama doesn't bother sucking up to these bozos. It's one of the perks of the office!
13. Obama can't get coal-state D's to back his energy agenda. He can't get R's to back any of his agenda. But at least he can blow them off.
[14.] I love that D who thinks Hillary will be different because "she understands the pathos that exists here." That's literally pathetic!
15. In conclusion: Congress is silly. The end.
Grunwald forgot to put a number on rant #14, but it was right there between 13 and 15.
PS: Grunwald recently talked to college students at Duke and was asked about partisanship in Washington. To him, that meant Obama critics: “I essentially got a bunch of Republican leaders to tell me about their secret plot to destroy Obama before he even took office.” Then he complained that all of his readers are looking for ammunition, not information, as if he is the soul of nonpartisanship:
The Obama-booster blog also included two stimulus-cheerleader tweets from Grunwald that arrived shortly before the 15-part rant:
Race to the Top helped FL raise graduation rates from 66% to 76% since 2009. Tnx, #stimulus! https://www.politicopro.com/f/?f=37543&inb
Tnx, #stimulus! RT @ENERGY Every 3 weeks the US installs more #solar power than in all of 2008? http://1.usa.gov/1t2jPIy
Grunwald even whines at the end of the Duke video that the public didn’t support the Obama “stimulus” because people didn’t have an open mind for facts. “Solyndra [the scandal] didn’t start until 2011, and by then everybody already thought the stimulus sucked...The idea that Solyndra really changed feelings about the stimulus would suggest that people had kind of looked at it with an open mind, and analyzed the facts before 2011, and I don’t think there’s a lot of evidence for that.”
