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Jewish World Review
Feb 28, 2012/ 5 Adar, 5772
Common ground becomes a great divide
By
Dana Milbank
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
“We’re not going to agree on every single issue,” President Obama told the nation’s governors at a black-tie dinner Sunday night, but “I’m confident that we’re going to be able to find more and more common ground going forward.”
The members of the National Governors Association returned to the White House on Monday morning for a working session with Obama. “The thing that connects all of us,” the president reminded them, “is that we know what it means to govern . . . and hopefully to forge some common ground.” An hour after leaving the White House, Republican governors told Obama what he could do with his common ground. “President Obama is clearly the most liberal president we’ve had,” Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal proclaimed at a news conference in the Mellon Auditorium arranged by the Republican Governors Association. “You’d literally have to go back to Jimmy Carter’s years in the White House, back in the 1970s, to match the liberal ideology, to match the incompetence.” Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell proposed a remedy. “The president said three years ago that if he couldn’t turn this around in three years, then this would be a one-term proposition. Well, Republican governors are deciding it’s time to collect. It’s time for a new president.” A third governor, Nikki Haley of South Carolina, piled on. “It was frustrating to see that he once again was finger-pointing at everyone else, and we don’t have that luxury,” she said, instructing the president: “Enough of the talk.” Not long ago, the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association was a time of bipartisan camaraderie, a respite from politics to discuss “best practices” in the various laboratories of democracy. But now even this island of cooperation has been flooded by the partisan tsunami. On the eve of this year’s gathering, word came that Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, had dropped his state’s membership in the NGA. Ohio left last year, and Idaho the previous year. Texas Gov. Rick Perry quit years earlier. The publication Governors Journal reported that “close to a dozen governors failed to show up” for the even this year, “or only attended partisan meetings” arranged by the RGA and the Democratic Governors Association. The Democratic governors had their own no-Republicans-allowed session with Obama, while the RGA held four fundraising-related events (two dinners, a lunch and a breakfast) over the weekend. Among the missing: New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican, did show up, but she managed to use the annual meeting to further her grudge match with Obama. The two recently had a highly visible argument on an airport tarmac. This time, Brewer skipped the White House dinner, citing “other commitments.” At Monday morning’s last NGA session, 18 of the governors’ seats were empty. It’s a shame that so many cared so little about the event, because the NGA still has the potential to bridge ideological disagreements. At the final meeting, the governors moved so rapidly to adopt, unanimously, their various policies on economic development, natural resources, education and more that the NGA chairman, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman (R), stalled for time. “I didn’t anticipate we’d get done with this quite this quickly,” he acknowledged. At the White House, Obama made a rather strained effort to demonstrate his good fellowship with the governors; he identified Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley as “Jack O’Malley.” But the friendliness, feigned or not, didn’t last. Plans for a bipartisan news conference in the White House driveway fell apart when reporters instead chased down individual governors leaving the executive mansion. At the botched news conference, the few reporters remaining had no questions for the NGA chairman and vice chairman. From that chaotic scene the action shifted to the Mellon Auditorium, where Republican governors offered their thoughts on Obama. McDonnell, dismissing the recent drop in unemployment (”it’s a couple of months — that doesn’t make a trend”), accused the president of the “largest expansion of the federal government in American history” and demanded of Obama: “Don’t make excuses. Don’t finger-point. Lead.” Jindal summarized the complaint: “He has failed when it comes to his tax policy, his spending policy, his borrowing policy, his energy policy, his health policy.” He added that Obama is “governing from the extreme left” and has not run “a competent presidency,” and “that’s why you’re going to see this administration be a one-term administration.” Otherwise, it sounds as though they had a productive meeting.
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Previously:
• 02/27/12 An expert witness for the GOP gender gap
• 02/21/12 Where Romney shines
• 02/15/12 A Republican death wish?
• 02/14/12Obama's budget games
• 02/13/12 Are GOPers playing right into Obama's hands?
• 02/08/12 Obama pumps the compressor of Joe Hudy's Extreme Marshmallow Cannon
• 02/07/12 Abramoff's atonement
• 02/01/12 Why we in the media just love Newt
• 01/31/12 The end of the road for Newt Gingrich?
• 01/25/12 Gingrich is Obama's best surrogate
• 01/24/12 Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney's attack dog
• 01/16/12 Mitt Romney's Al Gore problem
• 01/12/12 Kamikaze Gingrich, on the loose in South Carolina
• 01/11/12 Journalists' campaign trail secrets revealed
• 01/10/12 Mitt Romney's money problem
• 01/09/12 Newtonian exceptionalism
• 01/05/12 Mitt Romney out of control
• 01/04/12 Indecision 2012: In Iowa and the GOP
• 01/03/12 Rick Santorum's curious closing argument
• 12/28/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/23/11 A few cracks in my crystal ball
• 12/20/11 Strange brews and views?
• 12/19/11 Cellphone ban would be a distraction
• 12/15/11 Harry Reid, Mitch McConnell and the Malfunction Minuet
• 12/14/11 The presidential auction of 2012
• 12/12/11 Newt's tactics comes back to haunt him
• 12/06/11 Can an anthem save Occupy non-movement?
• 12/05/11 The winner of the GOP campaign: Washington
• 11/30/11 Barney the bully: Congressman Frank's other legacy
• 11/23/11 Jon Kyl's search-and-destroy mission
• 11/21/11 Pay to play, brought to you by Washington
• 11/17/11 Big enough to save the supercommittee?
• 11/16/11 Why Newt Gingrich won't last
• 11/08/11 The 2012 campaign gets seedier
• 11/06/11 A Machiavellian model for Obama
• 11/03/11 The Herman Cain crack-up
• 11/01/11 Cain can --- he will survive
• 10/27/11 Stuntmen of the supercommittee
• 10/26/11 Democrats on the sidelines
• 10/24/11 Rick Perry's birther Parade
• 10/24/11 The birthers eat their own
• 10/19/11 The GOP's middle man
• 10/17/11 The waiting for nothing Congress
• 10/12/11 Sparsely occupied D.C.: Why the movement hasn't caught on
• 10/10/11 Can Obama strike an alliance with Occupy Wall Street?
• 10/06/11 Chris Christie, such a presidential tease
• 10/05/11 Obama and his foot soldiers go toe to toe
• 09/28/11 Cain could deliver
• 09/26/11 Republicans? Mr. Nice Guys?
• 09/22/11 Why Ron Paul is winning the GOP primary
• 09/21/11 I am a job creator who creates no jobs
• 09/20/11 Obama launches a revolution
• 09/19/11 Dems for Romney?
• 09/14/11 ‘Supercommittee’? More than stupor committee
• 09/07/11 Mitt Romney finds his (corporate) voice
• 09/01/11 The infallible Dick Cheney
• 08/31/11 This liberal says Perry is the ultimate conservative candidate
• 08/29/11 Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler
• 08/10/11 How Rep. Austin Scott betrayed his Tea Party roots
• 08/09/11 The most powerful man on Earth?
• 08/08/11 The FAA shutdown and the new rules of Washington
• 08/04/11 Lt. Col. Allen West fires a round at the Tea Party
• 08/03/11 Government on autopilot
• 08/02/11 Dems mourn debt deal like death
• 07/27/11 Life imitates sport
• 07/26/11 Obama and Boehner take on Washington
• 07/21/11 Why Americans are angry at Congress
• 07/20/11 The new party of Reagan
• 07/18/11 Rob Portman, the boring Midwesterner who could bring sanity to the debt debate
• 07/13/11 John Boehner's bind
• 07/04/11 Stephen Colbert, Karl Rove and the mockery of campaign finance
• 07/01/11 President Puts Up His Dukes, As He Ought To
• 06/28/11 Rod Blagojevich verdict: All shook up
• 06/27/11 Progressives voice their anger at Obama
• 06/24/11 ‘Mission accomplished,’ Obama style
• 06/22/11 Jon Huntsman's first step toward oblivion
• 06/21/11 Scott Walker finds making bumper stickers is easier than creating jobs
• 06/20/11 A day of awkwardness with Mitt Romney
• 06/06/11 Hubris and humility: Sarah Palin and Robert Gates on tour
• 06/02/11 The Weiner roast
• 06/01/11 Congress clocks in to clock out
• 05/30/11 Hermanator II: No More Mr. Gadfly
• 05/24/11 How Obama has empowered Netanyahu
• 05/24/11 Pawlenty bends his truth-telling
• 05/20/11 Default deniers say it's all a hoax
• 05/18/11: Gingrich gives voice to moderation
• 05/17/11: Donald Trump and the House of Horrors
• 05/16/11: The medical mystery of Mitt Romney
• 05/12/11: The body impolitic: Schock photos should tempt lawmakers to cover up
• 05/10/11: Muskets in hand, tea party blasts House Republicans
• 05/09/11: The GOP debate: America -- and the party -- needs the grown-ups
• 05/05/11: Mitch Daniels, an alternative to scary
• 05/03/11: Obama's victory lap
• 05/02/11: How the journalist prom got out of control
• 04/28/11: Obama's birther day: Why did he lower himself by appearing in the briefing room?
• 04/27/11: Obama, lost in thought
• 04/24/11: Andrew Breitbart and the rifts on the right
• 04/22/11: Ten Commandments for 2012
• 04/21/11: Obama likes Facebook. Facebook likes Obama.
• 04/18/11: Without Nancy Pelosi, Obama is adrift
• 04/15/11: If progressives ran the world
• 04/14/11: Faith in political apostasy
• 04/13/11: One man's revolution is another's political expediency
• 04/11/11: Shutdown theatrics
• 04/06/11: Paul Ryan's irresponsible budget
• 04/05/11: Robots in Congress? Yes, we replicant!
• 04/04/11: Robert Gibbs, Facebook and the White House corporate placement service
• 04/01/11: Haley Barbour, the fat cats' candidate
• 03/31/11: Republican freshmen in House shut down compromise, and possibly the government
• 03/30/11: Coburn and Durbin, the dynamic duo of the debt crisis
• 03/28/11: The Obama doctrine: A gray area the size of Libya
• 03/24/11: Dems as Weiners
• 03/23/11: Obama's quick trip from tyrant to weakling
• 03/17/11: Who's afraid of Elizabeth Warren?
• 03/15/11: The underwear flap over Bradley Manning
• 03/10/11: In Senate's debt debate, talk isn't cheap
• 03/09/11: With Obama's new Gitmo policy, Administration officials had some 'splainin to do
• 03/02/11: Issa press aide scandal is like bad reality TV
• 02/25/11: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House
• 02/14/11: The Donald trumps the pols at CPAC
• 02/09/11: Arianna Huffington's ideological transformation
© 2011, Washington Post Writers Group
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