A President can deal with being disliked, even despised, by his opponents. But when he becomes a laughingstock among his own supposed supporters . . .
On today's Morning Joe, Dem Sen. Joe Manchin openly mocked President Obama's failure to communicate with Congress. Asked by Joe Scarborough whether the President is disconnected from the Senate and House, Manchin sardonically said "everybody has a different style." Queried as how often he talks to the prez by phone, Manchin sarcastically replied "I'm sure he's very busy." The panel had a good laugh at Pres. Obama's expense, until a mortified Mika Brzezinski couldn't take it anymore and demanded "Stop it. Enough!" View the video after the jump.
Are we witnessing the effective end of the Obama presidency? We should remember that 15 years ago, President Clinton was written off and forced to complain that he was still relevant because "the Constitution gives me relevance." Clinton managed a comeback that began the next day when the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed. But President Obama sorely lacks Clinton's political/interpersonal skills.
Manchin wasn't the only Dem to dump on Obamacare and its aftermath. Former car czar Steve Rattner described Obamacare as a house of cards that could easily collapse. And HuffPo's Sam Stein expressed doubt that Obamacare can survive for even six months.
STEVE RATTNER: You know, Obamacare is a very--you may hate it--but it's a very intricately constructed mechanism where each piece rests on another piece. You pull one piece out of this and the whole thing could easily collapse.
SAM STEIN: And the piece that's out of it now is the website. So there is the political problem which is that people are getting cancellation letters. And that could be solved somewhat if people were able to go on to a website and say oh, I can get this option and I can get this tax credit. They can't do that right now. I talked to a private industry source last night about this, private industry, not government, who said he wasn't worried about the numbers. What he's worried about is the numbers in six months time. The question now is can they make it to six months time? I'm not sure that they can.. . .
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Is the President disconnected from the Senate and from the House?
JOE MANCHIN: Everybody has a different style.
SCARBOROUGH: Is the President disconnected? Come on, brother. Is this President disconnected?
MANCHIN: I don't have that much -- if you're asking me --
SCARBOROUGH: When's the last time you met with him at the White House?
MANCHIN: The student loan bill. The one time I met --
SCARBOROUGH: You met with him one time time? But he calls you once a week, twice? How many times do you talk to him on the phone?MANCHIN: I'm sure he's very busy. [Panel erupts in laughter].
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Stop it. Enough!
