David Corn, the perilously liberal Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, got a much-needed civics lesson from the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan on CBS's Face the Nation Sunday.
After Corn carped and whined about House Republicans blocking Barack Obama's fiscal agenda, Noonan replied, "When a President wants to make something happen, he can make it happen, and he can't sit back and say, 'Oh, they wouldn't talk. They wouldn't do this. I'm so sorry.' You make it happen if you are President" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
DAVID CORN, MOTHER JONES: The problem is that edge that you speak about is now controlling the Republican Party, at least in the House. That's the one reason why President Obama was not able to get the grand bargain with, with John Boehner and the others because, you know, they were pulled too far to, to the right.
I think this is, you know, on the issue of adultness, I think the President has worked very hard the past year to show that he will even go against some in his own party to cut deals and compromises and try to move past these contentious financial issues, and you're going to see this again with the automatic budget cuts that were negotiated, that he negotiated last year with the Republicans. And it's the Republicans now who are running away from the deal. So, again and again, I think this edge that...
PEGGY NOONAN, WALL STREET JOURNAL: Mmm.
CORN: ...you speak about in such, you know, chagrined tones is not just an edge anymore. It's the center of the party, and that's why Mitt Romney had such a hard time in the primaries.
CORN: Oh, come on. It's a Republic...
NOONAN: You make it happen if you are President.
Indeed you do.
But this is the typical nonsense we've been hearing from liberal media members since Obama was inaugurated.
Even when Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress with a filibuster-proof Senate his first two years in office, Republicans were to blame for any liberal piece of legislation that didn't pass.
More importantly, the real obstruction as it pertains to fiscal matters has clearly been from Senate Democrats who haven't proposed a budget since February 2009.
This always eludes liberal media members like Corn when they complain about Republicans blocking the President's fiscal agenda.
I wonder why.
