“You think we’re stupid?” That quote from what a CBS reporter picked up from a closed door meeting with donors will likely be swirling through the new and old media — part of what Obama reportedly told donors about what went on behind the scenes during the budget negotiations:
In what he thought was a private chat with campaign donors Thursday evening, President Obama offered the most revealing behind-the-scenes account to date of his budget negotiations with GOP leaders last week.
CBS Radio News White House correspondent Mark Knoller listened in to an audio feed of Mr. Obama’s conversation with donors after other reporters traveling with the president had left the room.
In the candid remarks, Mr. Obama complains of Republican attempts to attach measures to the budget bill which would have effectively killed parts of his hard-won health care reform program.
“I said, ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?'” recalled the president of his closed-door negotiations on the bill to fund the federal government until September.
Will this give Obama a Harry Truman “Give him hell” image among voters or will it bring denunciations from Republicans, talk show hosts and others who’s say it shows he was partisan…even though the negotiations were clearly a quintessential partisan endeavor? AND:
Mr. Obama said he told House Speaker John Boehner and members of his staff that he’d spent a year and a half getting the sweeping health care legislation passed — paying “significant political costs” along the way — and wouldn’t let them undo it in a six-month spending bill..
Speaking into a microphone which he may not even have realized was still relaying his conversation to a distant press room — where Knoller remained the sole reporter after the planned opening remarks concluded — Mr. Obama bemoaned GOP leaders’ attempts to attach a measure to the budget bill which would have cut funding for Planned Parenthood.
“Put it in a separate bill,” the president said he told Boehner and his staff. “We’ll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don’t try to sneak this through.”
The most likely impact: this quote will likely reassure Obama’s liberal base that has accused him of being inclined to cave (a word increasingly used in place of the word compromise). And it will likely give Rush, Sean et. all some material to turn Obama’s comments into some big revelation that he defended programs that Democrats value such as health care reform and the organization Planned Parenthood which up until these negotiations had not been a partisan rhetorical pawn.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.