December 22, 2010 - 4:09pm
On
Wednesday's GMA, ABC's Jake Tapper spun President Obama's victories
during the lame duck Congress as a post-midterm "shellacking" of
Republicans: "The President and Democrats...have passed a tax compromise
package; repealed 'don't ask, don't tell;' and they stand on the verge
of getting the START...treaty ratified.
To hear...
Senator Lindsey Graham tell it, it's his side that was shellacked."
Anchor George Stephanopoulos trumpeted the "White House winning streak"
at the top of the 7 am Eastern hour, and continued that Obama was
"poised for a major victory: passage of a nuclear arms treaty, just days
after repeal of 'don't ask, don't tell' and the tax deal, ending 2010
on a roll. Can it continue next year?"
Seven minutes later, the ABC News anchor picked up where he left off as
he introduced Tapper's report: "We're going to move now to Washington,
where Congress is wrapping up its business, just in time for Christmas,
and the President seems to be on a rebound from the beating he took in
the midterm. Jake Tapper's at the White House, and Jake, with the
expected passage later today of the START nuclear treaty with Russia,
the White House is racking up significant wins."
The correspondent led his report with his use of the "shellacking" term:
TAPPER (voice-over): Remember this from just a few weeks ago?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA (from November 3, 2010 presidential news
conference): I'm not recommending for every future president that they
take a shellacking like I did last night.
TAPPER: But who was shellacked? The President and Democrats, in the
past few weeks, have passed a tax compromise package; repealed 'don't
ask, don't tell;' and they stand on the verge of getting the START
nuclear disarmament treaty ratified. To hear Republican Senator Lindsey
Graham tell it, it's his side that was shellacked.
SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM (from Fox News Radio's "Kilmeade and Friends"):
This has been a capitulation in two weeks of dramatic proportions of
policies that wouldn't have passed in the new Congress.
Tapper only gave a hint that the Obama administration was being less
partisan in their efforts to get the bills passed as he highlighted the
apparent bipartisan nature of the victories:
TAPPER: The White House says this was all accomplished by being more bipartisan.
WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN ROBERT GIBBS: I think the President would admit
that he spent more time reaching out to Republicans recently than in
previous times.
TAPPER: And the President could be playing more negotiator-in-chief
soon. When he returns from Hawaii, he intends to hold a bipartisan
retreat at Camp David, and White House sources tell ABC News, the
President feels there's potential for bipartisan compromise on education
reform. Soon-to-be Speaker John Boehner, after all, chaired the House
Education Committee that helped write the 'No Child Left Behind' bill-
spending cuts and reducing the deficit, which Republicans talk about
wanting to tackle, and government reform, like eliminating earmarks and
adding transparency. Some observers say a bipartisan 2011 seems
possible.
ALVIN FELZENBERG, AUTHOR/PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: The door's open a
crack now, and as- everyone is leaving Washington, perhaps, with a
better sense of the other side, than we saw the past few years.
TAPPER (live): And President Obama hopes to hold a press conference
later today, George, after the START vote, in which he'll talk about the
bipartisan nature of so many of the successes during the lame duck.
Stephanopoulos did acknowledge that there were potential clouds on the
horizon for the Obama administration near the end of the report:
STEPHANOPOULOS:
So, there is hope for bipartisan compromise in 2011. But during this
lame duck, they weren't able to reach agreement on the budget. There's
that 9/11 health responders still held up. Everything dealing with
spending seems to be ripe for more clashes, and those fights are going
to hit right at the beginning of next year.
TAPPER: That's exactly right. There's going to have to be a vote to
raise the debt ceiling in the spring, as well as, of course, the vote on
the budget, and there's going to be a lot of fights there about
spending cuts- and you're going to see whether or not this spirit of
bipartisanship is truly able to move beyond the new year.
- Matthew Balan is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here .
