Guests: White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs; Roundtable - New York Times columnist David Brooks; Fmr. Rep. Harold Ford Jr. (D-TN); Republican Strategist and Fmr. Counselor to President George W. Bush, Ed Gillespie; and msnbc's Rachel Maddow.
David Gregory's topics and questions all circled back around to the politics of the situation. Unarticulated political stance continues to plague this administration. Every answer White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs gave was further testament to this fact.
Our notion of the Administration becomes further solidified with each passing day. It consists of very talented and smart individuals, all of whom do not know how to communicate their ideas effectively to the American people to show them that the measures being taken to correct the various disasters that we're facing. Frankly, in most interviews, Administration officials sound defensive... like wimps. This was capped off, pardon the pun, of Mr. Gibbs acknowledging that the Republicans could potentially take the House this fall. There's confidence for you.
First, and foremost, the oil spew is a bullet wound for this country and we just can not stop the bleeding. For most people, this catastrophe is not in the collective daily consciousness but the ripple [read: wave] effect of this will be felt for decades. Mr. Gibbs stated that we're containing 25,000 barrels a day at this point, but this is in light of the fact that BP took the cap off the well and at this moment the oil is flowing freely into the Gulf. His reassurance is that Thad Allen is approving all of BP's methods for stopping the spew. What is he not going to approve? We're at the mercy of this oil company to stop this. However, what the Administration could and should do is stop BP from manipulating the entire situation with regard to press access, claim money distribution, and the scientific community assessing. BP does not have the right to essential quarantine areas of the United States coast. This is where the government should force a strong hand and we're just not seeing it.
What we hope doesn't fall into collective deafness is the program Mr. Gibbs outlined for the new battery plant opening in Michigan. By opening this plant, it will make fuel batteries for the Chevy Volt and has the potential to create 40% of the world's fuel batteries. We're one of the few nations to be able to facilitate innovation like this, which needs to be stepped up ten-fold.
The other overarching problem is that what everyone has to realize is that the problems that the Obama Administration inherited are going to take longer than two years to fix, longer than four years to fix. That's the reality that every politician knows and each party is trying to manage that unsaid truth. Obviously, this is harder on the Democrats since they're holding power. The result of course is very poor poll numbers.
Before moving on to Afghanistan, Mr. Gregory asked Mr. Gibbs if expectations for the Administration were too high going in. Rightfully, he asked it twice and Mr. Gibbs never answered it. So we'll have to...
(By the way, we hope that viewers are settling in with Mr. Gregory as time goes by, as we are. We're glad to see that his style has evolved. At first, he was going at interview guests like he was still part of the White House Press Corps where you get two questions, maybe and you'd better make them good. But now, he's using tone and time much more effectively.)
And the answer is YES. Expectations on both sides, the people's and the Administration's, were very high. Going in, The Obama Administration had 67% of the people on board, but what the Administration underestimated was the fact they didn't have 67% of the Senate onboard. Factor in the shenanigans played by Democratic Senators Nelson of Nebraska, Landreau of Louisiana, and Lincoln of Arkansas and the potential, on which the expectations are build, is plundered.
Speaking of expectations, we'll be coming up on ten years in Afghanistan, matching the Soviets escapade there in its futility. No one expected that, but here we are. And we need to get out as soon as possible. Instead of nation building, which is a large part of what we're doing, we should be focusing on the elements - the Taliban - that needs to be defeated. The reality is that the nation building is a smoke screen for us using Afghanistan as a launching pad for attacks in Pakistan against Taliban and Al Qaeda extremists. We can not openly claim this as one of our objectives, but if we're going to be hawkish in this respect, go all the way with it, up the intensity and shorten the duration and then get out. We can all conclude that we're not going to determine the ultimate future of Afghanistan, and simply trying to shape it for a certain trajectory if an iffy proposition at best. The Administration is stuck in a morass here and hasn't articulated a clear purpose.
We haven't even gotten to the panel, which honestly, is barely worth mentioning because of the following: Harold Ford made the good point that it's all about jobs, but it's easy to be right when you're not on the hook for creating them. David Brooks today was more or less a Republican apologist, and rightly so. Ed Gillespie is still trying in futility to defend the Bush record. And lastly, Rachel Maddow just wants to make sure her opinion in this forum sounds like the right one.
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