Tuesday, February 22, 2011

The eagerness to claim credit, apparently, has wound up being an obstacle to the whole grassroots narrative.

White House tries backpedaling from Madison protests - HotAir
White House denies assisting Wis. union, but ties run deep - BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL
...apparently someone forget to tell the DNC’s communication director Bob Woodhouse to scrub his Twitter feed to reflect this new strategy. Doug Ross has pointed out a Feb. 17 Tweet from Woodhouse saying that the White House was “proudly” playing a role in the protest.

The eagerness to claim credit, apparently, has wound up being an obstacle to the whole grassroots narrative. But even the claim that AFSCME, the AFL-CIO, or even the SEIU, are representative of some kind of grassroots movement denies everything we know about unions. First is their political access: Then-SEIU president Andy Stern not only served on the president's deficit commission, he was also the top visitor to the White House in 2009, the first year Obama was in office. Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO's head boss, is on tape saying that he talks to someone at the White House every day.

There's a word for this, and it's not "grassroots...."