ABOUT FIRST READ

First Read is an analysis of the day's political news, from the NBC News political unit. First Read is updated throughout the day, so check back often.

Chuck Todd, NBC Political Director

Mark Murray, NBC Deputy Political Director

Domenico Montanaro, NBC News Political Reporter



Party of 'Just say no'?

Posted: Tuesday, March 03, 2009 6:08 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under: , ,

From NBC’s Ken Strickland
In his weekly news conference today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made not-so-subtle references to the Republican infighting between RNC Chairman Michael Steele and conservative radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. 

Reid said it's clear the American economy is in trouble and needs help, "but I guess the Republicans haven't gotten that message. Maybe they're not reading the papers or watching the news; maybe they're focused on talk radio. I don't know."

Minutes later, the majority leader criticized Republicans for slow-walking a government-funding bill being debated on the floor. 

"The Republicans have made a decision to ‘just to say no’ to everything," he said. "It's very clear they've made a decision that they want President Obama to fail."

Sensing Reid was enjoying himself, one reporter threw him some more bait asking, "Which Republicans want the president to fail, and what do they want him to fail at?"

"I'm not going to name individual Republicans,” Reid responded, “but I think it's very clear, as a result of the actions, since Obama was elected, that people want him to fail. Some have said so; others have just acted accordingly. And I think that as a result of what's been going on in the press the last few days, we know that there's a significant number of Republicans out there who want the president to fail."

MAIN PAGE

Email this EMAIL THIS

Comments

Some one has to say no the insanity of Obama, Reid, and Pelosi. Calling those three "Clueless Dweebs" would be a cut down to Clueless Dweebs.
Doesn't Reid have other things he can do, like, spend billions of dollars we don't have, or swing some illegal land deal in Nevada for a nice windfall profit?
Did Reid have any comments on the market sinking to new 12 year lows based on the legislation and policies he's had go through his Senate?
How many times did Democrats vote for Bush to fail?

It seems that a "no" vote now defines "obstructionism" for Democrats.  I forget which of Orwell's books this reminds me of but aren't we dealing with either Squealer or Newspeak here?

Harry Reid reminds me of a scene I just saw in "Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox Story.  No dialogue, just male frontal nudity.  I will give Harry credit for being a bigger one.
Reid: [S]ince Obama was elected, that people want him to fail.

Absolutely. We want Obama to fail in making this country a socialist regime.
Wasn't it Reid that wanted Bush to fail in Iraq? Or was it Reid that said Bush failed in Iraq, even though he didn't.
Seems it's either be a member of the "Just Say No" party or the "Hey, **** you" party.  Just switch roles depending on which party is in power, huh?

At least we're shedding the faux bi-partisan crap.
Great fodder for the 2010 elections. Do you want a party that just says No? No to progress, no to recovery,no to helping ordinary people? If your answer is yes than you vote Republican but if your answer is NO than vote Democratic. Yes we can again and again and again.

Give 'em hell Harry. (Its about time Harry said something) But Harry forgot to repeat that they are also obstructionists as they continue to obstruct the will of the people. They will pay dearly in the next 2 elections and possibly beyone.
If the president fails, we all fail.  What do the repubs not get about that??
Some one should ask Reid why we were not allowed to review the Stimulus, as he says the economy is in failure but it couldnt have been to bad if you kept the Stimulus secret.....you also got your train, not shovel ready,so maybe you can run some track and put  it on the bridge to no where...Im losing faith in the democrats, and dont trust any party....Sad to say but Washington still remains the same......You also got your friend Mr Schumer whos convinced the American people like pork, again I encourage the american people to send him some..You also have pelosi who found a europe trip more important  than letting the american people review the package...She should face the American people so we can understand why....But we all know why. Sorry its the republicans also, it still remains an elite group who have  proven that they come before the American people.....Rumor is they are giving up there pay raise in order to understand what the American people are going thru.....I guess im just dreaming. ooops i woke up it was only a dream.
Harry Reid blatherings and rants:

- "This flu is going to strike us all, me, my children, my grandchildren, and if they get it, half of them are going to die.”

- “That would be a real poke in the eye with a sharp stick,”

- "Cool your jets, let the process go forward,”

- "President Bush should forget about privatizing Social Security"

(And let it wither away by itself apparently)

- "The American people do not like privatization. And they don't like benefit cuts. And everyone here should understand all 45 Senate Democrats are united. We are not going to let this happen."

(That would be the time when the Democrats were the party of 'No'.)
Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. This crisis was years in the making. Now everyone's asking: "Where's mine"? People have gotten used to instant gratification.

We have a president who has been in office since January 20th. January 20th! And now everyone has decided to wake up. And are now pointing their fingers at President Obama, a president who is only trying to right all the wrongs that have been committed in this country for years and years. You would think people would be happy that we have an Administration working 24/7 trying to come to terms with everything.

No, of course not. That's because we have been a self-centered irresponsible country for many many years.

Operation chaos in reality is the Republican Party. They sat back and did nothing but rubber stamp the Bush Administration for 8 years. Same with Wall Street. They have been greedy, weak and irresponsible. And we are now all paying a big price because of it.

Rush Limbaugh. Sean Hannity. Michelle Malkin. Glen Beck. Bill O'Reilly. Krauthammer. Kristol. Hume. You have no idea how much damage you have caused this country with your talking points propaganda during the Bush Administration.

And what's really sad is none of you care.

Yes, these are times that call for extraordinary measures. Too bad people in this country have nothing better to do than to moan. God forbid, we as country would come together, to challenge ourselves, to ask what can we do to get us on track again. It's much easier to whine. Has anyone in the media offered anything except complaints? Have they offered anything positive? Keith Olbermann did last night. He ran down a list of the positive changes we're going to be seeing soon. Does anyone care about that? You should. We all should.

I for one will take President Obama any day of the week over what's available in the Republican Party. They are awful. Just awful.

Actually, they're quite useless.
Zeig Heil Limpbag!  The new face of the Repuke party
Rush, Rush, Rush........

I'm soooo soorrryy Rush!

What a bunch of saps -

No ideas, No Leader -

Just NO.

Obama '09
They sure didn't say no 2001-2007 when they were running up the deficit by 5 trillion or so while giving warren buffet and bill gates big tax cuts...the repugnants have no fiscal credibility and now apparently they have to take their marching orders from rush 'hey can you spare a viagra buddy'limbaugh...funny stuff man
No problem with stating the truth.  The Republicans have NO options except for Obama to fail.  Funny thing is you couldn't even say you were against the Iraq War without being accused of being unpatriotic when Bush was Pres.  As far as I am concerned the Republicans who want Obama to fail are truly selfish and unpatriotic!!  
Liberals and that includes in the tank for Obama Chuck Todd, stop being intellectually dishonest and say the truth for once:  Limbaugh stated that he wants Obama's socialist policies to fail,not his presidency.
Chuck, talk radio is not dying, NBC news is because of dishonest reporting such as yours.  Do you know the price of GE stock??  Half of America does not watch NBC news or the today show, we get our news from talk radio and Fox news.  I know it is liberals hope that radio is dying, but it is just wishful thinking on your part.
The GOP ought to be fired for doing a bad job of getting anything done in this crisis. All they do is fight and cause trouble.
I love Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) comments:

"It's a breathtaking budget. This is probably the biggest rewrite or transformation of our federal budget since the New Deal. And that's not necessarily surprising. I mean, the president said he was going to bring us sweeping change, transformation. What surprises me most about this budget, though, is that they would bring this out in the middle of a recession. This budget takes the size of our government in this year to the largest level it has been since World War II. ... It doubles the debt in eight years. It never balances the budget. In fact, it proposes for the next 10 years that our deficits are the highest we've ever had on record."

Someone please remind Congressman Ryan that the New Deal was adopted three years into the Great Depression.  The New Deal was not adopted because things were doing great.  The same thing goes for Obama's budget, yet Republicans are still say Obama should do a Hoover and try to balance the budget after eight years of Bush.  

Worse, less than two months into the Obama Presidency, the WSJ is already blaming Obama for prolonging the recession.  The GOP corporate media spin has already begun.
It is much more heinous than wanting President Obama to fail.  They want the economy and the country to fail and Americans to suffer and die so they can claim to be the saviors in 4 years. It is a cynical political path that borders on treason.  

On the other hand the Democratic legislators who rubber stamped everything Bush wanted knowing he was taking the country in the wrong direction rather than take political heat for a courageous stand against him also deserve criticism.

Also Rush Limbaugh and some Republicans are PRETENDING to not know the difference between predicting failure and wishing for failure.
Mr. Reid just doesn't get it: it's the party of "ho."

Flush's ho, Newt's ho, Joe the nonplumber's ho, but mostly industry's ho.
FR: Reid said it's clear the American economy is in trouble and needs help, "but I guess the Republicans haven't gotten that message. Maybe they're not reading the papers or watching the news; maybe they're focused on talk radio. I don't know."

Hello Republicans!!!! We the People are over here.  It doesn't matter whose side you are on, the Republicans, Independents or Democrats.  The infighting in the Republican party is very evident.  

They all seem to agree on one thing, and that they are against President Obama and the President's policies.  Yet however, they are frothing at the mouths attacking each other, then amazingly the wounded 'supposed leaders' of the party are limping back to beg for forgiveness.  

We are a country in crisis on many fronts, have they forgotten about us?

I as an Independent am rooting for the President that this country elected to help get this country back on track and help solve issues that was promised to us by many presidents but never got done.  So far, I see this President making great efforts and strides.  I don't agree with him always, but at least he is trying.  And amazingly so is the Democratic party trying.

What is the Republican party trying to do currently?  Make crash statements about our current administration then fight amongst themselves.  If you have an idea on how to fix our country... Stop fighting just for a few minutes to give us NEW Ideas.  We all already know the old ones didn't work.

Kindest regards



SEND A COMMENT

PLEASE READ: All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to the blog, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

Message (please, no HTML tags. Web addresses will be hyperlinked):

TRACKBACKS

Trackbacks are links to weblogs that reference this post. Like comments, trackbacks do not appear until approved by us. The trackback URL for this post is: http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/trackback.aspx?PostID=1818937

First Read e-mail alerts


Sign up for First Read alerts
The first place for key political news and analysis

Syndicate This Site

Add First Read to your news reader:
live.com xml
myyahoo msn
bloglines newsgator
google