it, let s put it up here. one, according to the pledge, oppose any and all efforts to impose the marginal income tax rates for individuals or business and impose deductions and credits unless matched dollar for dollar by further tax rates. ana marie met congressman tom cole of oklahoma, saying republicans should support president obama s plan to raise taxes on folks who earn more than $250,000. he repeated that sentiment today. several other republicans said they ll violate his pledge. is there a full fledged revolt now against norquist? i think he is losing his influence. i have to add to karen s insight, democrats have elevated him, so has the media. the fact we are talking about him now adds to his mystique and power. i think grover used to be one of the only games in town when it came to spokesmen for this kind
reporter karen tumblty. harry reid weighing in on this topic, saying he proposes the mosque being at that site. making it harder for the democrats to stay out of it, isn t it? between the fact that the president has now commented on and harry reid has commented on it. it will make it harder for those democrats who had wanted to sort of step around this issue, say this is just a local concern for people in new york and get back to talking about what they really want to talk about, which is the economy and their plans to, the democrats had a whole set of talking points that they wanted to be talking about in this august recess. and, believe me, this mosque was not one of them. this certainly has changed the conversation. karen, the new york daily news said they were blindsided by president obama s comments on this topic. they didn t have time, as it s noted, to war game how to handle questions from reporters or talks by the gop and then rahm
one of the disconnects that they thought this white house was having with the american public was that you have to remember the public doesn t like what s congress right now so why do they believe that what they re producing is any good? i think that s right. you look at the news headlines that the white house can t control. bonuses to wall street bankers and perennially high unemployment and even though some of these bills are being passed and we in washington think it is a big deal, it doesn t convey to voters. they are having a harder and harder time making progress. you saw that after the bump in the passage of health care reform. very quickly, karen, going back to race as an issue with this president, do you ever think we ll see the president deal with a race issue as a sitting president in a proactive way or will it always be these moments of reacting? the white house will argue that the president deals with it in a proactive way through his policies.
karen, i want to start with you. the white house has had nothing but a month of distractions. it seems like they have been trying to turn to the economy in different ways. financial reform week and unemployment benefits and something is always overshadowed with general mcchrystal and how is the white house handling distractions now, say, compared to six months ago? interestingly enough, i think one of the reasons this happened the way that it did was that the initial impulse was to prevent it from becoming a distraction. so, they had what they thought was a very damaging videotape on their hands. the administration decided to just sort of deal with it quickly, cleanly, get it out of the way. the problem, of course, was that the truth comes out many news cycles later in the full video, so, that s when i think things really spiraled out of control. looking at the white house, how are they handling distractions now as opposed to same question to you, what do
january 1st deadline? here s what one prominent republican senator had to say this morning. i think we re going off the cliff. it s pretty clear to me they ve made a political calculation. you can limit deductions to $40,000, $50,000 a person which takes care of the middle class, upper-income americans will lose about $800 billion in revenue. the president s plan when it comes to entitlement reform is quite frankly a joke. i don t think they re serious about finding a deal. joining me are our special panelist of journalists, anna marie cox and karen tumblty, a political reporter for the washington post. good sunday afternoon to both of you. anna marie, let me start with you. for about two days after the election, everyone is holding hands, singing kumbaya. no one is singing any more. all of that optimism seems to have disappeared.