As for Obama, Mondale said, “He’s doing a good job,” adding, however, that when the President first took office he was “a bit green.” Also, he said, “In my opinion, Obama had a few false presumptions. One was the idea that we were in a post-partisan era.” The other was “the idea of turning things over to Congress—that doesn’t work even when you own Congress. You have to ride ’em.” Further, he suggested that Obama should stop thinking about what he can get from the Republican opposition: “You should explain clearly what you want, and, if they oppose you, attack them for it.”
Sounds about right to me. Mondale was there in the White House during the tough years of the Carter administration, and he should know. His seems rather obviously good advice to me, and I wish Obama would adopt the ideas and put them into practice.
Hear, hear!
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ReplyDeleteTobias Stanislas Haller said...
Amen. You can't look for cooperation and compromise from ideologues. The moderate left only works through government because they think it efficient. The right hates the idea regardless of whether it works or not. This cuts across almost all issues, including sexuality: liberals say, "Look at these loving lives," and the right answers, "It's wrong!" It is the clash of pragmatism with ideology.
I agree with Mondale that the Pres has woken up to this reality. A good thing, as there is nothing worse than wifty liberalism!
I always liked Mondale. He should have been president.
ReplyDeleteWhat a different country we might be today, if Mondale had been elected instead of Reagan.
ReplyDeleteWhat he has to say sounds eminently sensible to me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the relocation, dear Mimi!
ReplyDeleteI agree that Mondale makes lots of sense. Heard him today on tv and he said he advised Carter to get out and speak to the public about issues and is glad that Obama is finally doing that.
ReplyDeleteObama is getting out there, and that's a good thing.
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