As one of the liberal media members that have expressed feeling betrayed by the President's recent tax compromise proposal, Ed Schultz on Wednesday said Barack Obama did a better job of selling the Bush tax cuts than George W. Bush ever did.
So dismayed by today's 81 to 19 Senate vote in favor of the measure was the host of MSNBC's "The Ed Show" that he asked Nation magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel, "Do you trust President Obama?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
ED SCHULTZ, HOST: President Obama is one step closer to having his $858 billion tax compromise with the Republicans become the law of the land, and right now Nancy Pelosi is the only person in the world that can stop it. Now earlier today, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to pass this package by a vote of 81 to 19. Remember that number: 81. Only thirteen Democrats, five Republicans, and Bernie Sanders voted no.
It’s kind of funny, isn’t it? I mean, this means that President Obama did a better job of selling the Bush tax cuts than President Bush ever did.
About ten minutes later, Schultz asked his second guest the following:
SCHULTZ: Katrina, what do you think the liberal message is to Nancy Pelosi at this point?
KATRINA VANDEN HEUVEL, THE NATION: Stand strong, and lay down some lines on this estate tax. But I think, it’s a terrible thing, but we got a system, Ed, of transactional politics when we need transformational politics, and it may be that, Jerry Nadler, good Congressman, you don’t want to hold working and middle-class people hostage, but we got to go forward, and we got to expose how the Republicans and conservative Democrats are, you know, really giving millionaires and billionaires a bailout.
SCHULTZ: And do you trust President Obama? I mean, after we’ve gone through all of this, has, has he really played a bad card for liberals to the point where you can’t trust him anymore? What do you think?
VANDEN HEUVEL: You know what? I don’t think anyone should trust politicians or fall in love with politicians. It’s about accountability politics, and it’s up to progressives moving forward to create the conditions, organize, mobilize, drive ideas into the debate.
Boy, these liberal media members sure do take their desire to soak the rich seriously, don't they?
On the other hand, Ed's got a point that adds nicely to the delicious symbolism of two Democrat presidents last Friday telling the American people the Bush tax cuts had to be preserved to protect the economy.
Certainly isn't making for a fun holiday season in press rooms across the fruited plain.
