DAVID BROOKS:…My main problem [with the President’s Wednesday Press Conference] was, he was asked several times, were there any policies implicated in this defeat? And, again and again, he sort of dodged that question, or said no, and said, it was the economy.
Now, the economy was obviously a big part of this election. But to say that a whole series of unpopular policies, cap and trade, health care, stimulus, bailouts, were not implicated, well, that — I think that’s, A, wrong, but, B, draws the wrong impression, that you don’t have to change anything.
And so, when he talked about the stuff he had done wrong, it tended to be procedural or message-oriented. But there are some policy implications here.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, does that tell you that he’s not going to change anything?
MARK SHIELDS: Well, he’s still — I think it was premature for him to have the press conference today, because I think he’s still working it out. I really do.
I mean, I don’t mean to sound like a shrink, but — because he hasn’t come to grips with the reality that the policies were rejected. I mean, in campaign after campaign across the country, Republicans ran against specific policies that Democrats had voted for.
As always, Mark Shields and David Brooks are perceptive and insightful. And it’s certainly entertaining when they totally agree on something, like the striking fact that perhaps 48 of the 60 seats the Dems lost in Congress were in moderate to conservative districts, in effect tilting the party pretty far to the left.
But when someone who tries to be as fair and positive about Obama as Brooks often does says stuff that’s as damaging about Obama and the White House staff as Brooks did in this interview, well, it’s very revealing. And much more devastating than if it were said on Fox News.
David Handy+
I don’t think it tilts the party to the Left. Rahm Emanuel recruited these “blue dogs” to run in conservative districts claiming to be conservatives. But when push came to shove in Washington, they meekly vote with Pelosi. The party was already Leftist. What happened Tuesday is that its Congressional profile was revealed for what it is, with the Blue Dog mask ripped away.