Leading The Army
by digby
You know, when Democrats complained that Obama parachutes into negotiations at the last moment after a tone of blood and sweat has already been spilled, I'm not sure this was the remedy they had in mind:
Many Congressional Democrats found out about Obama's surprise speech by watching the Sunday shows, as top Obama aide David Plouffe made the rounds to note that the president would lay out a plan for long-term deficit reduction this week. "Plouffe's announcement yesterday morning did leave us scrambling, that's something we're working on right now," the House aide said on Monday.
House Democrats had already been preparing to release their own 2012 budget, under the leadership of Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the budget committee. The House Dems' budget plan had been in the works for weeks, as Van Hollen had been meeting with every major caucus in his party to craft an alternative to the Republicans' plan. Last week, the GOP's decision to push out Ryan's plan to radically alter Medicare and Medicaid in the middle of the 2011 budget fight threw Democrats for a loop. Now the news of Obama's speech has left Dems on Capitol Hill grappling with another unexpected turn of events that could force them to change their plans, as they won't want to be too out of sync with whatever Obama proposes.
I know that everyone has been clamoring for the president to "lead" but I'm fairly sure they expected a heads up at the very least. In fact, one might even expect some behind the scenes coordination, just to maximize the impact of his "leadership." But apparently, this is leadership-by-surprise, which a little bit unusual. Having your troops on the same page can be useful, but apparently this White House believes it's so good that it doesn't need that. Interesting approach.
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