Mark Mardell And The Golden Age

Mark Mardell is basking in The President’s glory in his latest blog post, and getting things completely wrong, as usual. Although Mardell is aware that He isn’t really as magical and all-powerful as He once was, he still wants his audience to know just how incredible His Rule has been for us all.

A Golden Age in the White House come to an end?

The only chink in His armor, to hear Mardell tell it, is the “horse trading” deal with the Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts. That was the one where the President had to call in Bill Clinton to convince enough Dems to vote for it and not screw everyone over for purely ideological purposes. But what Mardell doesn’t want you to know is that this was such a problem for Him that He has now banned the use of of the word “triangulating” by His staff. How pathetic is that?

What’s really ridiculous here is that, while Mardell is preaching so enthusiastically about His accomplishments, it was only a week ago that he was clucking his tongue at how these same accomplishments he’s praising now were rammed through during the lame-duck session of Congress in a way that looked “unseemly” to outsiders like him.

But that’s all forgotten now, I suppose, while we bask in His glory. This has been a magical year for the US, one in which He brought us one step further out of the darkness.

Will you remember the 111th Congress as a Golden Age? I suspect Mr Obama wants the American people to learn to feel nostalgia for the past two years.

So do you, Mark, which is why you and your colleagues always promote the White House talking points.

Of course, Republicans regard it as a period of unmitigated disaster.

Only Republicans? Once again Mardell displays either his ignorance or his deliberate dishonesty. What about all those independents who regretted voting for Him the first time and went Republican in November? What about all those Democrat candidates who ran against ObamaCare and higher taxes? The Tea Party movement wasn’t an exclusively far-right Republican club the BBC kept trying to tell you it was. Yet Mardell is still stuck in hyper-partisan mode.

Many Americans will regard it as a period of much muddle and unnecessary politicking.

No, that’s only those on the far Left who supported even the most extreme parts of the President’s and Democrat leadership’s agenda. Much of the rest of the country hit the streets to protest it, and/or voted in November to kick many of them out. Only far-Left ideologues like Mark Mardell think that the Tea Party movement and politicians starting to listen to the people was “unnecessary”. As usual, the mindset is “Let’s all work together: when it’s my idea. When you want your way, that’s nasty politicking and bad for the country.” Mardell is speaking from one side of the argument.

Even die-hard Democrats don’t feel a huge amount of pride in its achievements.

Ah, so Mardell does remember his blog post from last week. But why wouldn’t they feel much pride? Because so much of it was ultimately bad for the country? Is it because the really far-Left voices are angry that the President hasn’t done enough to move the country further to the Left? Mardell isn’t going to tell you. He’s only projecting his own disappointment that it wasn’t all glorious and everyone is ecstatic about His Administration. Why isn’t Mardell asking if the President and Pelosi and Reid maybe went too far to the Left for the nation’s comfort? It’s because he agrees with the ideology behind all of it, and thinks that anyone against it is a Republican stooge.

Yet Mr Obama said that it was “the most productive two years that we’ve had in generations”. He wants the day to be remembered as a time when things got done, when people could agree, when progress could be made. It is going to be an interesting new year.

See? “When people could agree”. It was a Democrat-controlled Congress. They got their way a lot. Nobody in the country thinks the last two years were about bi-partisan loveliness. That’s an absolute joke. The President and His staff know perfectly well that they had to force everything through, and that they won’t be able to do it in a real bi-partisan atmosphere. It’s moronic to suggest otherwise. The President spent two years denigrating His “enemies”. And Mardell believes He wants everyone to think it was all friendly reaching across the aisle? The President wants everyone to realize how great He is, not how bi-partisan Washington has become. Mardell’s rewriting history at an alarming rate.

Even in the lame-duck session, the only thing besides the tax bill which was bi-partisan was the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, and enough Republicans were happy to do it that He didn’t have to actually do anything. He passed the buck to Congress on this one, and they did it themselves. Yet we’re all supposed to think it’s one of His triumphs. He had very little to do with this, but don’t expect Mardell to tell you the truth.

No mention, of course, of the failed gargantuan spending bill, or the DREAM Act, which died because the Tea Party movement put Republicans and a few Dems on notice. No, we only hear about His successes. No mention of the defeat in November because that’s all been wiped away by the passage of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, right? Take that, hecklers! If the country voted overwhelmingly against so much of what the President and the Congress achieved these past two years, why would they remember it as a Golden Age? It’s silly to even think such a thing, unless one is a Democrat ideologue.

It’s echoes of St. Jon Stewart’s “Rally to Restore Smugness”: Let’s all work together – for the Democrat agenda. Working together is good – for the Democrat agenda. Mardell whines about it when he’s worried it doesn’t make his beloved Obamessiah look good, but then leaps at the chance to celebrate it when it suits his message.