Thursday Idiocy Starring Ron Fournier!
Outsourced to Scott Lemieux: We Are All White House Advisers: "Ron Fournier has discovered that everyone now agrees with him:
For months, the White House and its allies mocked critics of Barack Obama’s leadership, arguing that no president has “Green Lantern” superhero powers. Now these same people are predicting that Obama can salvage his agenda by waving a magical “pen and phone.” The contradiction illustrates how far partisans will go to defend a flailing presidency, grasping at slogans and insult…
A contradiction! Who are those people who used to understand how American government works but now think that Obama could get his legislative agenda through a Republican House if he only had the leadership to lead, with leadership? Here’s an exhaustive list of the “same people” who have allegedly changed their minds:
White House adviser Dan Pfeiffer
I don’t recall Pfeiffer ever making fun of Green Laternists, but I’m certainly sure he alone cannot constitute all of “the same people.” But at least he said something really dumb, right?
“He is going to look in every way he can with his pen and his phone to try to move the ball forward,” Pfeiffer said. “We’re putting an extra emphasis on it in 2014.”
So a White House adviser says that Obama will try to do stuff, with no claim at all about whether it will work. But to Fournier, that’s more than enough evidence that everyone agrees with him that Obama could have changed the game by doubling down on the Overton Window, but he didn’t. even. TRY!