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Chris Matthews: Obama Should Do ‘Something That Conservatives Won’t Like’

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» 67 comments

Chris Matthews is fed up. Sure, that’s sort of his shtick, but this time around, he’s taken a break from decimating Republican politicians and is reserving his ire for none other than Barack Obama. The Hardball host, after giving a brief rundown on Republicans’ support of laissez-faire economics (which consists, apparently, of telling the government to “get out of our face”), said he has no idea what the President’s policy happens to be or how it might differ from what Republicans are trying to do:

What’s the Obama strategy? I don’t know what it is right now. And that’s the challenge: What is it exactly, or even generally, what’s the President going to do? Now we’re getting these stories out now that he’s going to come back on Labor Day or day after Labor Day and give us a jobs program and a deficit reduction program, both, in two addresses.

Well, let’s hope it’s more than just, you know, cutting the payroll tax, extending unemployment, something to do with Panama or Colombia and South Korea trade deals, and patent reform. That’s too sundry. That doesn’t have any impact. That doesn’t have any bang to it.

Then, Matthews offers advice on what it is that Obama should do (Hint: Something.):

I think he needs to come out with something that the conservatives won’t like, the middle-of-the-road will like and will have to buy, and the liberals will definitely like. But he has to do something that they disagree with on the right. He has to draw the line, I think, and say the government can create jobs. Every member of Congress, left, right and center, has spent most of his or her career trying to get government money into their districts for jobs for projects of different kinds.

Matthews wondered why the President doesn’t simply take a look at proposals from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress (yes, even Michele Bachmann) and give them government funding for projects that will create jobs in their respective districts. (An idea, he admitted to guest Andrea Mitchell, that he got from talking to his MSNBC colleague Rachel Maddow.)

“Do some jiu jitsu,” he continued, “Take all the Republican members of Congress, list everything they’ve ever asked for, in terms of federal investment in their districts, and say ‘YES!’”

Mitchell then introduced a clip of Obama comparing negotiations to telling the First Lady she can no longer shop, but that he will keep his golf clubs. Matthews was less than amused:

Look, I don’t think that’s very strong and I think it’s a bit upper middle class to be talking about golf clubs and dresses. And people right now are in a recession; they’re not quite in that league right now.

Sad face emoticon. Can these two patch things up?

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  • Anonymous

    Obama should do *something* conservatives don’t like? 

    Matthews obviously hasn’t seen this site, where the wingnuts shit and piss themselves simultaneously every time Oblamey takes a step.

  • Anonymous

    Sad face emoticon.

     
    : )

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NK5INRFELITZ3TS337HINC3VMM Adam

    He’s been doing that for 2 1/2 years, Chris.

  • Re-Elect Obama 2012

    “Every member of Congress, left, right and center, has spent most of his or her career trying to get government money into their districts for jobs for projects of different kinds.”

    Just read a good article on Darryl Issa (R) doing some pork-barrel road projects that will help appreciate the value of some of the nearby buildings that he owns.

  • Anonymous

    Obama should do *something* conservatives don’t like? ”

    Sorry, he already exists, Chris.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    No, please don’t do that, Mr. President. They’ll bleat, kvetch, moan and whine. Like they do every day. About every thing.

  • TruDat

    Sober up Chrissy, you’re looking more and more like Barneys Frank each and every day.

  • Anonymous

    Chris Matthews: Obama Should Do ‘Something That Conservatives Won’t Like’

    As opposed to just impugning their patriotism and being a lowlife union organizer ?

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    What is it you do like? Elderly people eating cat food? Ill children who have no insurance? Dogs being kicked? I only ask because I can’t seem to find anything you people like. You’re always angry.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    That is so Issa.

  • GoNavy

    Guess you don’t watch LSDNBC.  Talk about kvetching….Oy!

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002116280154 Fred Smith

    Your screen name says it all, just what every LIBIOT wants to be in real life

  • TruDat

    Like you lefties did for 8 straight years under Bush?

  • Anonymous

    No, please don’t do that, Mr. President. They’ll bleat, kvetch, moan and whine. Like they do every day. About every thing.

    Everything is one word .

  • Anonymous

    non-freeloaders, which eliminates you and libs in general.

  • Anonymous

    I thought Bush was still president, libby boy!

  • Anonymous

    Someone needs to tell Matthews that it was called “Obamacare” and “destroying the national economy”.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    Poppy or W?

  • Anonymous

    The only plan The Chicago Jesus has is spending more taxpayer money. It’s all he’s got.

  • Anonymous

    It makes no difference; as long as its not Barry. He hasn’t been responsible for one thing in 2.5 years.

    He is such a great argument for the gratuitousness of the presidency!

  • Michelle

    Tingles is truly the gift that keeps on keeping.  .

    If you need a good laugh:

    Obama Mania Endless Love

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyXLBA_1dlQ

    ps, the fun starts at second 45

  • Anonymous

    It’s full panic mode on the left. Hide the rice wine and the ginsu.

  • Anonymous

    We like Gitmo open.

  • Michelle

    How dare you correct the Royal Spelling and Grammar Czar!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NWVKX2P2QBPQ6FHQHCHVIC2ALQ Fedup in Florida

    That’s the problem with Progressives all heart and no brains. 

  • Anonymous

    You mean like doing the right thing, Chris? 

  • Anonymous

    And no money of their own!

  • Michelle

    Gallup – A new low of 26% of Americans approve of President Barack Obama’s
    handling of the economy, down 11 percentage points since Gallup last
    measured it in mid-May and well below his previous low of 35% in
    November 2010.Obama earns similarly low approval for his handling of the federal budget deficit (24%) and creating jobs (29%).

    Boom, losing!

  • Anonymous

    But we know that all polls are now considered to have been conducted by  far right organizations, correct?

  • Anonymous

    Remember, troll, yellow in front and brown in the back.

  • Michelle

    Well it depends on what they say?  If they are favorable to Obama, they love the poll.

  • Anonymous

    BTW, Barry got a 24% approval on the debt and 29% on jobs!

    Losing!

  • Anonymous

    Tingles: borrow (more) and spend away (more) to solve the problem of too much spending and borrowing. Artificially do this on everything and anything we can think of.  In other words, keep digging.
     
    Fact: many businesses are actually sitting on a fair amount of cash which they would invest in future jobs if they had confidence they wont be screwed by Obamacare and taxed and regulated to death in the future.

  • Michelle

    Barry has a “plan” and he will let us in on it when he gets back from the vineyard. 

  • Steve

    Were you complaining when the GOP rubber stamped every time Bush raised the debt ceiling, refused to veto every spending bill, or when the debt incurred during his presidency reached 7.7 trillion? You’re not one of the millions of angry, white people who waited through the beginning of the recession, at its worst in 2008, until Obama became president in 2009 before you cared about government spending are you? This is why I absolutely refuse to take seriously the Tea Party.   

  • CrazyLikeAFoxViewer

    AS usual, you only tell half the story. Obama’s opponents’ support is still below his. Republicans are unpopular, Congress is unpopular and the tea party now has a net negative rating of 20 points. There’s still not a Republican running who outpolls Obama (other than a “generic” Republican) and no Republican is emerging as a force to contend with. So even if Obama is currently seeing a loss of support, he’s still WINNING.

  • Steve

    Was Bush acting patriotic when he put the Afghanistan War on autopilot for eight years leading to “the first real strategy” according to General Petraeus undertaken in Afghanistan when Obama became president? Or how was Bush being patriotic when he stopped looking for Bin Laden closing the Bin Laden center at the CIA in 2006? And how about the trillion dollar expenditure in Iraq which Obama rightly  called a “dumb war?” And last I recall it was the patriotism of Barack Obama who made it his number one priority to kill Osama Bin Laden. I’ll take Obama’s experience and patriotism every day over the limited intellect of his predecessor.

  • Anonymous

    Tax and spend Tingles. Has a nice ring.

  • Anonymous

    Ever the anti-intellectual, Matthews sees plummeting poll numbers and diminished popularity ratings in a creaking economy and suggests as his solution strident partisanship.  With friends like these…

    On another front, congress critters don’t funnel money to their districts because they “know it creates jobs,” Chris, they do it because they’re buying the votes of their constituents with public monies.  Representative Johnson from Maine’s 23rd district doesn’t get reelected if his interest is seeing money go to a fantastical “works project” in Representative Smith’s 14th District in Rhode Island with a theoretical higher potential for “employment” (which, in Matthew’s world, is what drives the economy).  It’s in in convincing Smith to vote for his pork project in exchange, borrowing the money if there isn’t enough of it in Washington and running up the debt, so they can both go home and claim to have “brought home the bacon” – and jobs don’t factor.  And holy crap if this isn’t what Matthews is saying Obama should support!  Federal spending for everyone!  That’s the economy Matthews knows.  And I believe that’s the problem.

    Buy a clue, Matthews.  Businesses create jobs.  Government wastes people’s money for votes.

    But hey.  It’s Matthews we’re talking about.  He thinks – being that channel’s preeminent anti-intellectual – that there’s actually something indicative about the golf clubs comment that’s worth consideration instead of it being just a throw away line.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NWVKX2P2QBPQ6FHQHCHVIC2ALQ Fedup in Florida

    Like What exactly?  Maybe go our and buy a couple of Big Ass Buses

  • Anonymous

     
    Obama already swindled us ” real ” Americans out of nearly $1 trillion two years ago with his ” jobs saved or created ” bullsh*t story, which was in fact a quid pro quo illegal payments to his union cronies whereby they then kicked back $1 billion of it to his 2012 presidential campaign coffers.

    Obama will push his same, lame bullcrap, race/class warfare that has crippled this country since he & his vacation/expensive clothes grubbing partner in crime assended on our White House, like locusts, nearly three

  • Michelle

    Steve,
    Plenty of Conservatives were driven crazy by Bush’s spending, you just choose to ignore it.  It doesn’t fit your racist template. 

  • Anonymous

    Fact: What is wrong here is when Obama has ever done
    what the GOP wanted. Never he just try’s cloning some GOP moves but doesn’t do
    it right ever. He has always moved in the Cloward and Piven direction nonstop!

  • Lizzbrown

    When President Obama identified himself as an African American he did something the Conservatives did not like and when he got himself elected he did something the conservatives did not like and when he moved all of his stuff into the White House he did something the Conservatives did not like and when he made them call him Mr. President he did something they did not like.

    Where you been at Chris?

  • Lizzbrown

    When President Obama identified himself as an African American he did something the Conservatives did not like and when he got himself elected he did something the conservatives did not like and when he moved all of his stuff into the White House he did something the Conservatives did not like and when he made them call him Mr. President he did something they did not like.

    Where you been at Chris?

  • Lizzbrown

    When President Obama identified himself as an African American he did something the Conservatives did not like and when he got himself elected he did something the conservatives did not like and when he moved all of his stuff into the White House he did something the Conservatives did not like and when he made them call him Mr. President he did something they did not like.

    Where you been at Chris?

  • dono

    Really?  Are people happy with the cost of health care being their second greatest expense after their mortgage and before food?  Really?

    Happy with this massive growth in healthcare costs http://www.reliableplant.com/Read/27915/Chart-rise-health-care-costs ?  In fact its the NON-freeloaders getting screwed = we pay for the uninsured now and that is a major reason our premiums keep going up.  Hospitals have to charge more to us to pay for the 40 million uninsured.

  • Anonymous

    Chris is one of those on the professional left that wants Obama to fight and talk tough just to do it. The President cannot do anything alone. He has one house in congress who will not pass anything at all that he sends. It can be a hallelujah bill giving tax breaks to the rich and naming a monument after Reagan and the Boehner led, tea partied down repubs will not pass it. Last year when the dems held both houses and the whitehouse the republicans were able to block a extension on unemployment benefits for 2 months. The only full proof way to get something passed is to have a 60% vote in the Senate which he doesn’t have. Obama making speeches on things that are doomed to fail is just stupid, but that is what Chris is advocating!

  • Anonymous

    As I said- 80% of people said they were satisfied with their HC and all your whining doesn’t change that!

    Chop, chop- get my coffee!

  • Anonymous

    Ah, poor boy. The debt wasn’t 100% of GNP then was it? The unemployment rate was not 9.2% then was it? There were not record numbers of people on welfare, below the poverty level or in foreclosure either, were there?

  • Anonymous

    …of all the luck!  How is it Dems always manage to pick up a race card for their hands?  Someone needs to be checking their sleeves for a hidden deck…

  • Anonymous

    You a mind reader? Why don’t we let conservatives speak for themselves race hustler.

  • The Real Royal Emperor

    Odd you waited until we had our first African-American president to begin your continuous Slander-a-Thon then.

  • Michelle

    Well, as usual, you are flat  wrong.  But, you’re used to that, right?

  • Michelle

    Sweetie, we regret to inform you that the race card has been maxed out and rendered useless.  Please choose another card and try again?

  • Anonymous

    how true.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_NK5INRFELITZ3TS337HINC3VMM Adam

    I liked my health care plan before Obamacare passed. After the bill was signed into law, my premiums went up and I had to take a smaller plan that allows access to fewer hospitals. “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” Joe Wilson’s infamous response comes to mind.

  • Anonymous

    He did that 50 years ago when he was born black in HAWAII.  And more recently he won the Presidency which drove them batshit crazy.

  • Anonymous

    Chissy, the only jobs government can ‘create’ are its own. It can do NOTHING about the hundreds of million people who cannot ‘build roads & bridges’ with their bare hands. Not everyone is a union HACK; not everyone is a welder; not everyone can lay & flatten asphalt. These so-called ‘infrastructure jobs’ are the ONLY ones Obamo seems to care about.

    And even THEN he’s failed. Libs like to say the stimulus was ‘too small.’ Well, in whose pockets did that money go, Chrissy? Why was there absolutely NO positive impact whatsoever? Who’s going to applaud MORE of something that didn’t work the FIRST time (aside from the always-haughty Paul Krugman)?

  • ExPat ExLawyer

    You’re not being fair here.  Government can create white collar jobs involving the creation of needless paperwork for  private sector employers to comply with before they are permitted to create jobs.

  • LADYLADY

    ah,yes,he,lilblsambo,is winning and the rest of our Country is losing…the thrill up the leg keeps on coming! Generic Republican of no,the lil is toast…..

  • LADYLADY

    Well said and true…now lets get him the hell voted out….

  • Anonymous

    Earth to Matthews….Obama SHOULD do something to p. Iss us off. Really.

  • Jpd1965

    I almost didn’t even notice that u changed the subject and ignored all the points made in the post u were responding to. Nice work.

  • Jpd1965

    Pay no attention to FDR and the NewDeal, they never happened and we never got out of the great depression. I know your type doesn’t believe in science but now you don’t believe in history either.

    But wait it wasn’t the government spending of the NewDeal that ended the great depression, it was WWII.

    Well how did that end the depression?

    The government spent lots of money to build the war machine and that created jobs and grew the economy.

    Can’t it just be WWII that ended the depression without all the government spending?

    Uhm, no, this is called “history”, not “just the part of history that supports my political ideology.

  • Jpd1965

    Hey look it’s Herbert Hoover! I like how you don’t think.

  • Anonymous

    If you consider tank parts and rationing “economic growth” while millions in the labor force went under arms.  You ever talk to anyone from the era?  How divorced from actual history do you have to be in order to see what went on in that era in terms normalcy by which you deign to measure statistics?  That wasn’t depression.  Instead, that was insanity.  That was total war.

    FDR’s New Deal policies of artificial controls and central measures extended the depression into a decade of misery.  Our country’s ‘economy’ served one purpose for the war years – no traditional market forces, no luxury items, very few amenities – and didn’t take off on it’s own devices until after the war – when every other major economic competitor had FOUGHT that total war on or above its home territory – and not on government spending but on pent up demand.  There was one country’s labor force left in the world what could start producing consumable goods without great difficulty.  Ours.

    So is that the model you wish to emulate?  The ginning up of a conventional world war in which we get to destroy and/or conquer our economic competitors so to increase our GDP?  Without doubt, it’ll work every time.  Not sure if that’s what the people want, however.

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