Via Breitbart, a minor masterpiece of O-speak insofar as he appears to accept responsibility — while inevitably blaming others. I should have done more, he confesses, to keep my promise about changing the culture in Congress. But when Sawyer presses him about the backroom deals, watch how quickly he moves to pass the buck to Reid and company: “Let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals.” Oh no? The Standard reminds us of this nugget in a WaPo story last month about Ben Nelson’s Cornhusker Kickback:
Schumer, who spent more than 13 hours in Reid’s office Friday, said the Medicaid issue was settled around lunchtime, and the final eight hours of the talks focused on the abortion language. Boxer estimated she spent seven hours in Reid’s offices — without ever once sitting in the same room, even though they were all of 25 steps apart.
Reid and Schumer kept up the “shuttle negotiation” between the leader’s conference room and his top aide’s office, Boxer said. Keenly aware how tense the talks were, the White House dispatched two aides who together have decades of experience in the Senate — Jim Messina and Peter Rouse — to work with Nelson. They relayed their intelligence to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, who monitored the talks from a dinner in Georgetown.
Am I hallucinating or didn’t that HuffPo story that blew up back in August about a secret deal with the pharmaceutical industry also involve a White House angle or two?
Incidentally, this makes twice in 24 hours that he’s said or done something to make life more difficult for Congress even though they’re the ones who have to face voters in November, not him. Does he … want a Republican House next year? Is this actually some sort of master “Democrats under the bus” strategy at work?
Exit question: Who wants to be the one to tell Gibbs that his boss disagrees with him about whether or not there’s been sufficient transparency so far?
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