Say It Ain't So Already

Obama Administration Begs For Help From Liberal Bloggers

Apologies to Greg Sargent over at the Washington Posts‘ “The Plum Line” for copying his entire post on this but I hope and want ya’ll to read the whole thing.

Not only that, I can’t decide which part to leave out; it’s so juicy:

Top Obama adviser David Axelrod got an earful of the liberal blogosphere’s anger at the White House moments ago, when a blogger on a conference call directly called out Axelrod over White House criticism of the left, accusing the administration of “hippie punching.”

“We’re the girl you’ll take under the bleachers but you won’t be seen with in the light of day,” the blogger, Susan Madrak of Crooks and Liars, pointedly told Axelrod on the call, which was organzied for liberal bloggers and progressive media.

The call seeme [sic] to perfectly capture the tense dynamic that exists between the White House and the online and organized left: Though White House advisers in the past have dumped on the left, anonymously and even on the record, Axelrod repeatedly pleaded with the bloggers on the call for help in pumping up the flagging enthusiasm of rank and file Dems.

“You play a great role in informing people about the stakes of elections,” Axelrod told the bloggers. “One of the reasons I was eager to expend time was to enlist you.”

But hovering over the call was the obvious disconnect between this plea for help and statements like those of Robert Gibbs, who recently pilloried the “professional left” for being overly critical of the White House.

That tension burst out into the open when Madrak directly asked Axelrod: “Have you ever heard of hippie punching?” That prompted a long silence from Axelrod.

“You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching,” Madrak added. “We’re the girl you’ll take under the bleachers but you won’t be seen with in the light of day.”

Axelrod didn’t engage on “hippie punching,” but he said he agreed with the blogger. “To the extent that we shouldn’t get involved in intramural skirmishing, I couldn’t agree more,” Axelrod said. “We just can’t afford that. There are big things at stake here.”

Madrak replied that Axelrod was missing the point — that the criticism of the left made it tougher for bloggers like herself to motivate the base. “Don’t make our jobs harder,” she said.

“Right back at’cha. Right back at’cha,” Axelrod replied, a bit testily, an apparent reference to blogospheric criticism of the administration.

At any rate, for Axelrod to plead with liberal bloggers for their help turning out the base, only to get accused of “hippie punching,” is an iconic moment in Campaign 2010.

So, less than six weeks before the mid-terms, and after almost two years of administration officials calling liberal bloggers things like “f**king retards,” and the “professional left,” and telling Democrats they need to “wake up,” they come crawling asking for “help in pumping up the flagging enthusiasm of rank and file Dems?”

It’s disgusing.  I wish I hadn’t seen this.  Damm!

Someone sh*ts on you for two years and then asks for your help at the last minute and everyone’s supposed to jump up and down and say oh yeah, we’re there for ya?!

What was it Georgie boy said?  “There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”

F**kin a.

The unmitigated gall!

September 23, 2010 at 5:15 PM Leave a comment