An Ambush That Wasn't, Yet Was

Politico tried to explain why Republicans are delaying their summit with Obama until Nov 30, in a story that merited, and has since received, a correction (thereby spoiling my fun).

Josh Marshall, who picked a bad day to give up caffeine, decides that the sloppy reporting is yet more evidence that Republicans are stupid liars who lie stupidly.

The truth was actualy quite accessible, as we will see.

From Josh Marshall we get the original Politco bit:

The roots of the partisan standoff that led to the postponement of the bipartisan White House summit scheduled for Thursday date back to January, when President Barack Obama crashed a GOP meeting in Baltimore to deliver a humiliating rebuke of House Republicans.

Obama's last-minute decision to address the House GOP retreat - and the one-sided televised presidential lecture many Republicans decried as a political ambush - has left a lingering distrust of Obama invitations and a wariness about accommodating every scheduling request emanating from the West Wing, aides tell POLITICO.

"He has a ways to go to rebuild the trust," said a top Republican Hill staffer. "The Baltimore thing was unbelievable. There were [House Republicans] who only knew Obama was coming when they saw Secret Service guys scouting out the place."

Dr. Marshall then notes many reports (incuding a Republican press release) that President Obama accepted a Republican invitation to address their retreat two weeks prior to the event.  Oh, those dastardly Republicans!  Back live to Josh Marshall:

Honestly, I'm not even sure what to make of this. Not only does this version of events seem preposterous on its face, I didn't even realize this was their storyline.

Let's start with this whole idea that Obama somehow just showed up and blew up their retreat. Crashed, ambushed, etc. This was definitely not my recollection. I thought that the House Republicans invited Obama. And he accepted. Indeed, I remember for what I think were several days in advance our Eric Kleefeld telling me how excited he was to see a US equivalent of the Brits' question time.

So was it an ambush? Well, My God, not even close.

Well, I don't have much of a recollection one way or another, but fortunately, I have the ability to search the NY Times website for their fine reporting.

Let's see - From mid-January. Obama to meet at Republican retreat in a few weeks, as advertised.

And now, what is this, from the day of the event?

For Mr. Obama, the lion’s-den strategy of addressing a Republican audience reinforced his effort in the State of the Union address this week to reclaim a more bipartisan image and reach out to disaffected independents. Although he and other presidents have addressed opposition caucuses before, they usually close the doors for questions, but this time the White House insisted on letting the news media record the give and take.

That worked to his benefit as he took advantage of the staging that comes with being president. He commanded the lectern with the presidential seal and the camera was trained mainly on him, while his interlocutors were forced to look up to him from the audience. Moreover, Mr. Obama gave long, confident and informed answers and felt free to interrupt questioners, while it is typically harder for others to interrupt a president.

So the staging worked to Obama's benefit.  Well, wait a second - when did the Republicans agree to give up the home court advantage like that?

Traditionally at annual party retreats, the president gives a short speech that is open to the public and media, then the doors are shut for a more candid question-and-answer session. Republicans said they initially did not ask the White House if the president’s entire appearance could be public since they did not expect it would consent.

But late Thursday, the White House asked if the exchange with the lawmakers could be televised. Republicans decided this morning that they would allow media coverage, rather than be portrayed as wanting to keep the session private since they have been promoting themselves as advocates of government transparency.

So the idea that the full session would be televised was raised by the White House the evening before the event and only agreed to by Republicans on the morning of the event.  My goodness, that sounds almost like... an ambush.  The White House presumably did not surprise themselves with their request, so they had several weeks to prepare Obama's remarks and staging.

Regardless of the botched Politico coverage, figuring out what was vexing the Republicans wasn't so hard, even if it was too hard for the Talking Points team.  And lest you doubt me, here is the Politico correction of the substantially revised story:

CORRECTION: President Barack Obama’s decision to accept the invitation of House Republicans in Jan. 2010 was announced in advance; the decision to televise it was made at the last minute.

The non-ambush ambush.  One imagines that Republicans are not keen to experience a similar surprise in their November summiit with Obama, whenever it may be.

As to what Republicans said to Politico and what Politico heard, who knows?  Obviously, people should have known Obama would appear; the surprise was that the camera crews stayed.

Comments

[What the Clemons are you talking about?]

East is East and West is West.
============

[Rob Crawford]

Why should House Republicans listen to Obama? They won, after all.

[Buford Gooch]

Rob has the right of it. The entire conference should be comprised of repeats of; "Elections have consequences," and, "We won, Barry."

[Hah, hah, hah, nor does he.]

This is just more of his narcissism. He shut off probably useful feedback. I don't know whether that happened on purpose or not.
==========

[MayBee]

This is just more of his narcissism. He shut off probably useful feedback. I don't know whether that happened on purpose or not.

Kim has it right. The media worshipped him for his "masterful" performance, even though he was often wrong in the things he was saying.
It was more delusion on the way to downfall. If Obama had listened, he would have known what was coming.

[glasater]

I believe it was the healthcare Blair House summit that got things rolling. Boehner's referred to the event as Obama's seven hour infomercial.

[Jeff]

the GOP should agree to having this meeting telivised on CSPAN just like the health care deliberations ...

[Frau Hellbraun]

lol Rob and Buford.

Give 'em hell, Tan Man!

[Manuel Transmission]

Second behind the lines NRO report.

The big scuttlebutt is Bernie Goldberg got off on the wrong foot wrt Andrew Breitbart and never really recovered. He was a bit more of a one note johnny then usual and no one was particularly sympathetic.

What made it really funny was the way it was handled. Kevin Williamson (brilliant guy - new to me) starts an interview w/ Bernie by asking a couple of questions supposedly from Andrew: what's wrong with you? Is it brain damage? The roar from the audience cleared the air quickly.

A lot of the discussion is inside baseball stuff regarding the new and old media. Little is focusing on the actual events that get talked about in the media.

Breitbart explains that the hard core new media go straight to the wire services and now the lamestream guys are going to the new media to find out what to talk about AND Soros has figured out that he can buy the new media cheaper than the lamestream guys and have more effect in the process.

NYT still predominant only in the fact that the 535 members of Congress read it, even if no one else does.

The main new effect is that the lamestream media can no longer prevent news from spreading by ignoring it ala the CRU email debacle.

Bernard Lewis mentioned that the Yom Kippur war was started by Sadat so Egypt would lose and thereby be rescued from the immanent takeover from the USSR. Later we learned that Kissinger related a similar story in one of his books. Apparently The Soviets had already created large no-trespassing zones within Egypt on their way to consuming all of it.

Other gossip: Sarah has a book coming out around Christmas that is being assisted by a certain relative of a certain NRO biggie.

Would chat more, but drinks await!

[Rick Ballard]

GOP lawmakers need to accord the office of the President with the respect which it is due. They also need to demonstrate to the cheap hack who declared them to be his enemies that they are in full accord with his designation and intend to follow through on Senator McConnell's promise that he shall not pollute the office beyond January, 2013.

They must stick with 'Just Say No', as did the G20 leaders. There is no reason to humiliate this failure any more than he has humiliated himself. There is absolutely no sense in risking the generation of any sympathy for the man.

[DebinNC]

Blair House Obamathon, as glasater said, ended all doubt about whether Obama could be trusted. Obviously, the Republicans arrived believing the two sides would have equal time to speak, but Obama blithely and unapologetically set them straight.

[Pagar]

"ended all doubt whether Obama could be trusted"

Any doubt about whether Obama could be trusted should of ended the day he totally shafted Alice Palmer. No human being on the face of the earth should have ever trusted him again.

""
But Barack Obama had no plans of stepping aside. That wasn't the not-so-nice part. He certainly was entitled to stay in the Democratic primary. Convicted fraud artist, Tony Rezko raised over $15,000 for Obama's campaign. That wasn't the mean part either -- though it was a little slimy. The not-so-nice part of Obama's election victory was his treatment of Palmer. Obama had Palmer disqualified from the primary.

David Freddoso reports in his book, "The Case Against Barack Obama," that Palmer collected nearly 1,600 petition signatures to get back on the ballot for reelection and submitted them well ahead of the deadline.

But rather than leaving the outcome to the voters, Obama decided to take the matter into his own hands. He decided to use Chicago hardball tactics against Palmer. Obama had his team painstakingly examine each of the 1,580 signatures, searching for technicalities."

LUN

[Stephanie]

Teh Fred just slapped Colin P.

Thompson clarified Powell's endorsement of Obama's job performance. In the Army, you say "He's doing a good job" when he destroys everything that gets in front of him.

via a commenter at Ace's.

LOL

[Stephanie]

And BTW if you haven't yet, peruse the letter linked to the blog post at Ace's about "Curtis Got Slapped." I saw this last week at Something Awful and it has now gone viral. To read the letter, click through to Something Awful.

Weapons Grade Stupid that fine doesn't come along very often.

[Rob Crawford]

More "punish the innocent, ignore the guilty" from the TSA (via Legal Insurrection, source LUN):

Japan Post Services Co. said it will stop accepting airmail packages bound for the United States weighing 453 grams (1 pound) or more starting Wednesday because airlines will stop such delivery at the request of U.S. aviation authorities as part of antiterrorism measures...

The Transportation Security Administration of the U.S. has informed air carriers of the 453-gram rule, and carriers notified Japan Post Services, the spokesman said. The rule applies not only to packages from Japan but from other countries.

I know three small British businesses -- one a literal mom-and-pop operation, the other with two or three people, and another a solo concern -- that do lots of their business with US customers. They happen to sell miniature soldiers -- made of pewter or lead. That stuff gets heavy QUICK.

I really can't afford it right now, but it looks like it's time to place orders with them, because Real Soon Now, if not already, it's not going to be possible to.

TSA... Tyrants... S? A?

[bgates]

Tyrants Suck Ass, Rob.

[Rob Crawford]

Don't give them ideas. They'll frame that as a way to find rectally-planted bombs.

[centralcal]

Just saw this over at Weasel Zippers:

The Westboro Baptist Church nutjobs "will picket the Islamic Center of America in Dearborn, MI, the largest mosque in North America, to remind the idolatrous, doomed Muslims that Mohammed was a pedophile and a false prophet."

That could get very interesting.

[Captain Hate]

There can be no net negative outcome of the Westboro idiots taking on Dearbornistan.

[Rob Crawford]

There can be no net negative outcome of the Westboro idiots taking on Dearbornistan.

Really? I can think of dozens of ways the government will decide the rest of us need to be punished to "prevent" another such incident.

[Extraneus]

They don't seem to have the letter at CurtisGotSlapped.com.

[sbw]

Slurpees! Git yer Slurpees!

[Captain Hate]

I can think of dozens of ways the government will decide the rest of us need to be punished to "prevent" another such incident.

Elections have consequences

[Rob Crawford]

Unelect a TSA bureaucrat.

Oh, wait. We can't.

[Janet the tea-vangelist!]

Slurpees! Git yer Slurpees!

Hahahaha..too funny! Someone here at JOM is always saying they're gonna invest in more Orville Redenbacher stock too!
Sit back & enjoy the show....

[Rob Crawford]

Pelosi re-elected to lead the House Tyrannists.

[Rick Ballard]

O frabjous day!

[sbw]

"Pelosi re-elected to lead the House"

Don't change horses in the middle of the dance that brung ya.

Piling cliché on cliché.

[Extraneus]

AP calls election for Murlousky.

[Sophia]

Hi! We are students at Smith College in Massachusetts taking a Research Seminar. We invite you to take a survey assessing gender attitudes and behavior. The survey should take between 30-45 minutes to complete and is completely anonymous. To thank you for your participation, you will be entered into a raffle for a $50 gift card on Amazon.com. Thank you in advance for your participation!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NVG3CBG

[Captain Hate]

Well done NRSC; take a bow for all the fine work you did.

[Jack is Back!]

Of all the major airports to opt out of the TSA for private screeners its hard to believe its San Francisco International. You'd think groping and touching ones junk would be a major reason their citizens would want to fly out of there.

OT: Anyone seen the photo of The Won/Wan over at Fox News Channel website? I mean, I know smokers and I know how they look under stress and he is obviously becoming a multi-pack a day man and his "Epic Fail Fall" (someone here coined that and I want to give them attribution) face reflects big time stress. And this guy has a football with a red phone inside it. Scary!

[daddy]

I feel sorry for the Prez.

Here he was all set to have the Press report the he was back to asking the Repub's "Withering Questions", and now they've gone and canceled on him. Whats a poseur to do?

[Janet the tea-vangelist!]

Here's the link to Fox news. The picture is the one Ann posted on the Sullivan thread. Hahahaha

[DebinNC]

AP calls election for Murlousky

Someone suggested Porkowski.

[Extraneus]

Ann posted that pic last night, I think, Jack. Underneath one of him from a couple of years ago - supremely confident, nose in the air, with defocused and younger-looking Hillary in the foreground. :-)

[Thomas Collins]

"Hi! We are students at Smith College in Massachusetts taking a Research Seminar. We invite you to take a survey assessing gender attitudes and behavior."

OK, what's the over/under on the number of times this appears? I doubt it will top the interracial dating site ads, but we'll see.

By the way, as the self-appointed Hedda Hopper of JOM, has everyone heard that Eva Longoria and Tony Parker are splitsville?

[Jack is Back!]

Ex,

Last night I was sitting outside (ain't Florida wonderful) under the stars reading my Kindle. Didn't get a chance to snoz the JOM. But the more I look at that picture I see one word "deflation". His balloon is busted - and I don't think he is like Clinton with a number of "second winds". And Hillary can look like a damp rag with wrinkles also. I am starting to think he may not be up for a vigorous 2012 re-election campaign. Even as a sitting prez he has to start now and the republicans will keep him too busy in DC. Plus he has the dragging anchor Pelosi on the ship of State.

[Rick Ballard]

What's a decent waiting period before the remaining Blue Dogs can cross the aisle? Do the President, Senate Majority Leader and House Minority Leader have to do something incredibly stupid together to trigger that most intelligent of moves or can simple individual acts of blatant stupidity by any one of them, the folks who have led the Democrat Party beyond the precipice, be regarded as sufficient?

I hope Boehner guards the aisle - no turncoat should be allowed to bring anything but their vote across. No seniority, no promise of committee assignment, not even a choice parking spot. The Blue Dogs who turn will be running from the bayonets and they really have very little to offer.

[sbw]

Won't the ostensible Senator from Alaska be without the earmarks she promised?

[Rob Crawford]

What's a decent waiting period before the remaining Blue Dogs can cross the aisle?

Considering Pelosi's been re-elected minority leader, they could start immediately, with cause.

[narciso]

In the spirit of this thread, I think this qualifies, as 'strange new respect' no Ann Althouse's commenters are aloof as usual, in the LUN

[Rob Crawford]

Narciso -- by "aloof" do you mean "half of them are idiots"?

(I see "AlphaLiberal" posting there. I won't say what I think his fate should have been years ago.)

[narciso]

I was trying to be charitable, Rob, I'm bummed
out that this walking definition of nepotism, won the day, seemingly, Ace has his fur singed
by blaster, again I see.

[daddy]

Way behind and at a bad computer so if this is redundant I apologize.

ADN reporting that an FBI agent and 2 Fed Prosecutors "engaged in misconduct" when they colluded to falsly convict Ted Stevens. Can't tell if this is a wrist slap or not.

Sorry, can't link the story.

[narciso]

"Engaged in misconduct,' it that kind of the Black Knight saying 'it's just a flesh wound'

[daddy]

Yeah narciso,

A weak story, but preliminarily it sounds like they are guilty and may be in that hard spot between whether they will suffer a firm talking to or instead get sent to bed without supper for a week.

[narciso]

Meanwhile, apparently you can't convict a terrorism of you know terrorism, I'm checking
for the big Multiverse box and the Thingmonger

[torabora]

The Reps should be seated high up, theater style...B+arry should get a podium at ground level forcing HIM to look up.

No notice on this either...set up a repeat of the last arrangement for show and change it the night before.

[JM Hanes]

Republicans should invite the Prez to a confab on the Hill and stuff him in a corner seat at a long table.

[Jack is Back!]

I have a gut feeling that Palin will not run for POTUS. She sort of gives it away in that Draper interview. She is currently "internalizing" by talking this out first with her family. Its one thing to be in a DWTS and TLC bubble as well as the daily topic for Sully. But when she runs for the job she is never going to be home and her family will have to pack it up and be with her. Plus she has to start no later than after the holidays. She needs to staff up, get the organization moving, picking financial guru's to do the donor stuff, logistics, policy positions, etc. This not an easy job it is time consuming and physically as well as emotionally draining.

I also don't think she has the super-ego required to make the big run. She would be the first "commoner" to try for the job aat a full paced clip. W comes across as a "commoner" but he is blue blood bred and resumed-up for the job.

[Annoying Old Guy]

Palin is still young enough that she could easily wait another 4 or 8 years to run, while spending that time doing what JiB notes - building organization, building brand, finding trustworthy proxies for the ground game. You can do that well, or you can do it fast, and Palin strikes me as going with "well", compounded by her experience with "fast" on the McCain campaign.