The White House is beginning its final push on health care this week, with senior adviser David Axelrod and press secretary Robert Gibbs making the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to express confidence that the bill will pass.
"We'll have the votes when the House votes, I think, within the next week," Gibbs said on "Fox News Sunday." "Whoever sits here at this time next week, I think will not be talking about health care as a proposal, but as the law of the land."
Asked by Tom Brokaw on "Meet The Press" whether Republicans would be able to run against health care in the 2010 elections, Axelrod told Republicans to bring it on.
If the Republican Party wants to go out and say to that child who now has insurance or say to that small business that will get tax credits this year if he signs the bill to help their employees get health care. If they want to say to them, "You know what? We're actually gonna take that away from you. We don't think that's such a good idea." I say, let's have that fight. Make my day. I'm ready to have that. And every member of Congress ought to be willing to have that debate as well.
It's really not news. It's pushing a point of view. And the bigger thing is that other news organizations like yours ought not to treat them that way, and we're not going to treat them that way. We're going to appear on their shows. We're going to participate but understanding that they represent a point of view."
David Axelrod on ABC's "This Week" 10/18/09
It's not so much a conflict with Fox News. But unlike I suppose the way to look at it, the way the President looks at it and we look at it, it's not a news organization so much as it has a perspective. And that's a different take. And more importantly is not have the CNNs and the others in the world, basically be led and following Fox as what they're trying to do as legitimate news organization in the sense of both sides and a sense of valued opinion.
Rahm Emanuel on CNN's "State of the Union" 10/18/09
It's about damn time. Faux is to objective news what the NFL Network is to football - a wholly owned subsidiary pushing a biased viewpoint. In the case of the NFL Netowrk however, nothing that comes out of Rich Eisen's mouth can affect the dirction of our nation.
It's been my contention for years that Fox should be treated as an entertainment network by the public, and maybe more importantly, by its peers. Fox gains it's power when other legitimate news sources (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN) treat it's reporting as being on-par with theirs.
The standard Fox response is to poke at MSNBC, saying "we're no worse than they are". And truth be told, MSNBC is wandering into opinion-news territory. However GE has made the smart move of keeping it's 2 entities separate. Fox is not.
Fox maintains that they maintain separate functions of news and commentary. First, this is disingenuous. Second, if this is so, then they need to putt on-screen icons up letting the public know which is which.
This is all moot however. Fox revels in it's contrary nature. They follow the Ailes/Atwater playbook of saying something so often that they (and hopefully you) believe it.
Good on the White House for growing a set. No one is denying Fox's right to exist. But let's not take them seriously either.
David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama, had harsh words for some of former President Bush's closest advisers during an interview with the Post's Lois Romano yesterday, dismissing as "intramural stuff" the critiques offered by the former Administration.
Axelrod praised Bush for his handling of the transition while sharply criticizing some of the former president's advisers.
Axelrod said he was "disappointed" by former Vice President Dick Cheney's comments regarding the planned closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison and the suggestion that it would increase the likelihood of a terrorist attack; he described himself as "surprised" by former White House chief of staff Andy Card's remark that not wearing a jacket in the Oval Office was disrespectful.
But, Axelrod saved his strongest condemnation for the man who held his job in the Bush White House: Karl Rove. Of Rove's criticism of Obama's economic stimulus plan, Axelrod said: "The last thing that I think we are looking for at this juncture is advice on fiscal integrity or ethics from Karl Rove -- anyone who's read the newspapers for the last eight years would laugh at that."
Rove did not return an email seeking comment. But, he did pen an op-ed today in the Wall Street Journal in which he starkly criticized the way Obama has gone about addressing the financial crisis and heaped praise on congressional Republicans for how they have handled the matter.
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