Obama’s ‘I Won’ Comment
When I first read about the comment at Politico, it didn’t sound like Obama; it sounded more like “I’m the Decider” …
President Obama listened to Republican gripes about his stimulus package during a meeting with congressional leaders Friday morning — but he also left no doubt about who’s in charge of these negotiations. “I won,” Obama noted matter-of-factly, according to sources familiar with the conversation.
My reaction was very similar to James Joyner‘s:
[Obama] was elected president, not king — or even prime minister. He’s easily the most powerful figure in American politics but he’s just the head of one branch of government.
He doesn’t need [Rep. Eric] Cantor’s help very much and is unlikely to get it. The House operates very much along party lines and Cantor is a fiscal conservative who’s not going to get sweet talked into a giant boondoggle whose main purpose is to “do something.” But, given that [Obama] desperately wants broad support for his stimulus package so as to spread the blame if things don’t go well, he’ll need to compromise and give Republicans some concessions.
But the exchange (and hence my reaction to it) took on an entirely different hue when I read this account from the NYT as reprinted in our local newspaper:
“We just have a difference here, and I’m president,” Mr. Obama said to Mr. Cantor, according to Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, who was at the meeting.
Mr. Emanuel said that Mr. Obama was being lighthearted and that lawmakers of both parties had laughed.
Mr. Cantor, in an interview later, had a similar recollection. He said the president had told him, “You’re correct, there’s a philosophical difference, but I won, so we’re going to prevail on that.”
“He was very straightforward,” Cantor added. “There was no disrespect, but it was very matter-of-fact.”
Yet more evidence, I suppose, that we can’t really know what’s going on unless we’re there and should thus remember to take second-hand reports with a grain of salt.
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5 Responses to “Obama’s ‘I Won’ Comment”
In one short and simple phrase “I won”..Obama has made it clear to the party whose members ransacked America, literally as a whole in as many ways you can think of to ransack it: financially, world-respect and standing, energy policies (or lack thereof), waste and circumventing the Constitution, that “There's a new gig in town. Get used to it.”
The republicans are uncomfortable with the fact that it isn't business as usual anymore, that payoffs and backroom deals aren't dictating official policy anymore. They literally looked at that table like kids in the edge of a path of a deep deep dark forest where compromise, compassion and reduced-profiteering lay ready to pounce out of scary shadows at any moment. They actually looked terrified at the prospect of entering this erstwhile unchartered territory from the usual neocon ilk. (in spite of the fact that they overtly display themselves as christians who are supposed to by their brothers' keepers..)
Obama said in those two words: “you will now have to expand your old way of thinking to include benefits for people other than yourselves and your little cloister of super-rich friends.”
So yeah, it was “offensive” to some…
@ Silhouette – Epic reading comprehension fail.
I thought something seemed fishy when we kept seeing those two words without any real context. The disturbing aspect of this whole thing is that almost every news outlet just passed this on as news without stopping to confirm what he said before and after those two words. A good editor should ask those questions.
It does matter what he said before and also what he said after, the media tried to say all he said was I WON. I am a cons. and they always did the same thing about Bush. This media should really straighten up.
Thank you
Wow, are you a naive fool or what? There is just as much corruption in the Democratic party as the Republican. Just look at the earmarks! As for helping their super rich friends, there's plenty of that on both sides of the aisle? Don't you understand that what Obama isn't some outsider but a creature of the very corrupt politics of Chicago? That he's surrounded himself with party apparatchiks from the same old Democrats who've been running things for years? If you think he's truly some revolutionary, just look at how he's softened his stance on lobbyists in his administration. From Nov '07 – “no lobbyists” to now, no lobbying in your job area in the past two years, sort of, uhh with some exceptions (btw, I'm not opposed to lobbyists so it's not my bone to pick). If that's not enough, look at his wiggling on Gitmo. It doesn't take a year to relocate 270 prisoners? He hasn't figured out what to do with them yet! Or his order on torture, forming a special committee to determine if intelligence agencies can use more coercive means (btw, I'm fine with what we've done, I sleep like a baby). My point is that you, like many other saps out there have poured all your radical hopes and dreams into the container that is Obama and his key ability is to make you think he believes in them. Lol, hopefully you'll learn.