What the Washington Post Wants From Obama Post-Election

    They just hated his press conference yesterday. Editorial after editorial in the WP today is beside itself that Obama didn't walk over broken glass. We have conservative Jennifer Rubin gloating, 'Ok, this is why the Republicans won.'

     Dana Milbank:

     “I hear you,” President Obama said to the voters who gave Democrats an electoral drubbing in Tuesday’s midterm elections.

      "But their message went in one presidential ear and out the other."

       "The Republican victory was a political earthquake, giving the opposition party control of the Senate, expanding its House majority to a level not seen in generations and burying Democratic gubernatorial candidates."

        "Yet when Obama fielded questions for an hour Wednesday afternoon, he spoke as if Tuesday had been but a minor irritation. He announced no changes in staff or policy, acknowledged no fault or error and expressed no contrition or regret. Though he had called Democrats’ 2010 losses a “shellacking,” he declined even to label Tuesday’s results."

       "Obama declared that he would continue with plans for executive orders to expand legal status to undocumented immigrants — even though, minutes before Obama’s news conference, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said that would be “like waving a red flag in front of a bull.” Obama repeated a familiar list of priorities — a minimum-wage hike, infrastructure and education spending, climate-change action — and brushed off various Republican proposals."

      http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-seems-numb-to-this-shellacking/2014/11/05/e4873444-6548-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html?hpid=z3

      The Washington Post can't stand it-for years they've been on and on about Obama's 'failure to lead'-you have to understand what Tuesday was about to them. For the GOP it's vindication of obstruction, vindication of Obama hatred, vindication of everything they ever said about him. For the Very Serious People in the press it's vindication of all their complaint about 'failing to lead'-why doesn't he just come out on bended knee-that it's a black man would make him on his knees all the sweeter!

     Then we have Obama's alleged progressive friend E.J. Dionne-who really isn't his friend-rubbing it in. This is worse than 2010! It's the worse election ever I guess. 

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-democrats-2014-defeat-is-worse-than-it-was-in-2010/2014/11/05/bbbdc1ce-6528-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html

      This alleged 'earthquake' is all about the media feeling vindicated in its trite complaint about his leadership style.' 

       So how should he have reacted? If you can believe it, Milbank thinks he has something to learn from George W. Bush.

     "President George W. Bush was rarely one to admit error, but on the day after the midterm “thumpin’ ” Republicans received eight years ago, he responded dramatically. Bush announced the ouster of defense chief Donald Rumsfeld and set in motion a new Iraq policy. He also offered a frank acknowledgment that everything had changed: “The election’s over and the Democrats won, and now we’re going to work together for two years to accomplish big objectives for the country.”

      "Obama was blase by comparison. “Obviously, Republicans had a good night,” he said, but “beyond that, I’ll leave it to all of you and the professional pundits to pick through yesterday’s results.” The message that Obama took from the election, he said, was that Americans “want us to get the job done. All of us in both parties have a responsibility to address that sentiment.”

        http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/obama-seems-numb-to-this-shellacking/2014/11/05/e4873444-6548-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html?hpid=z3

       Meanwhile Ed Rogers held up Bill Clinton as the model for how you respond to a 'shellacking.'

        http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2014/11/05/the-insiders-no-signals-that-president-obama-gets-it/

        Yes, Lawrence O'Donnell looked back on how Clinton responded last night-remember that he worked for Clinton in 1994. Clinton offered what the blood thirsty press wants-mea culpas. 

        Actually what Clinton apologized for was raising rich people's taxes. He blamed it on congressional Democrats. We keep hearing how low a regard Congressional Democrats hold Obama in. I'm sure Clinton's Democrats held him in much higher regard after he threw them under the bus. 

        At the end of the day what did the VSP at WP and elsewhere want? In a word blood. They wanted the President on his knees. Major heartfelt kudos to him for not giving it to them. 

        P.S. Tuesday wasn't quite the earthquake the VSP say it was. My guess, we'll have forgotten this whole narrative by 2016. Yes, for now the GOP's cynical strategy worked but this was an off year election which is totally different from a Presidential year. My guess is that we'll have a Democratic wave in 2016 that sweeps away this Republican wave.