From this weekend's Meet the Press, RNC Chairman Michael Steele wants us to believe that Republicans have not been obstructing everything President Obama has tried to achieve legislatively as a political tactic and that they really, really did want to cooperate with him. Yeah, sure Micheal. That's why the GOP decided they liked the health care bill when it was Bob Dole's idea, or something akin to Romney-care, but once a Democrat put it out there for a vote, suddenly it was "Socialism" and the Republicans all voted against it. Spare me.
Of course heaven forbid it was too much trouble for the hapless David Gregory to point this out for the viewers. Steele also claimed that they're "hoping for a better relationship come January" which means they're hoping President Obama will rubber stamp a Republican agenda or they're going to stomp their feet and hold their breath until he does. Pretty much the same nonsense we've seen out of them for the last two years. Obstruct and then blame the other side for not getting anything done. And in the mean time, the country suffers while they play politics.
DAVID GREGORY: And good morning well here we are the final countdown to election day 2010 and with us exclusively this morning the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele, welcome back to Meet the Press.
MICHAEL STEELE: It’s great to be back with you, David.
DAVID GREGORY: Let's get right to it, it's final argument time and the president is on the campaign trail, he's been out west, he was in the Midwest and on Friday he leveled probably his most potent charge against Republican leaders in Washington saying that they made a cold political calculation when he came into office basically not to work with the Obama White House, that they could have cooperated - decided to obstruct, this is part of what he said ....
PRESIDENT OBAMA ON TAPE: The Republican leaders in Washington, they made a different calculation. They looked around at the mess that they had made, at the mess that they had left me, and they said, boy, this is a really big mess. And they said it's going to take a long time to fix. ... So maybe if we just sit on the sidelines, say no to everything, and then point our fingers at Obama and say he's to blame, they figured that maybe you all would forget that they caused the mess in the first place, and they'd be able to ride anger all the way to election time.
DAVID GREGORY: Chairman, what's your answer to that? Your vision of what the story of the last two years has been?
MICHAEL STEELE: Well it actually sounded more like a pity party than a rally, I mean I can't believe the President is sitting there with hindsight saying that we didn't cooperate, that the Republican leaders did not cooperate with the President, I think from Health Care to the environment to the economy, the Republicans in the House and the Senate had made - had made very clear this is what we'd like to do. Let's talk about healthcare reform that includes tort reform, that includes other types of mechanisms that will keep sacrosanct the doctor patient relationship, and not put government in the middle of that. Let's talk about job creation by stimulating small businesses and not the federal government.
And so the ideas that were put on the table, a lot of them propounded by folks like Mr. Boehner and Eric Cantor and Paul Ryan were summarily rejected and the fact, as you recall David, Republican leaders particularly specific members couldn't even get a meeting with the president, they tried after sending letters and requests to sit down and go through the President's agenda to see how we could help. We're hoping for a better relationship between the White House and the Republican Congress come January.
