Woodward to Obama: Sticking Your Finger in Republican Eyes All the Time Won’t Work

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, CBS News political director John Dickerson advised the current White House resident to destroy the Republican Party.

On PBS's Charlie Rose Monday, the Washington Post's Bob Woodward made a much different recommendation to President Obama saying, "Sticking your finger in these people’s eye all the time I don't think will work" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BOB WOODWARD: It's not just a matter of defending it, and I think Bob Caro is right that Obama feels very strongly about this. He's the champion of the safety net and he should be, but even he when I talked to him some months ago he said that spending on these entitlement programs is untenable, and he and all the economists know, and you get to a point where you either fix it, and fixing it means you're going to have to find some savings in it, that there's going to be less benefits given the number of people who are coming on these programs.

Obama realizes that, and he's just, he's got to find a way to work some deals. He needs to, he needs the Republicans. You know, the simple fact is, and Michael Beschloss is an expert on this issue of a president has to rally the country, not just his own party or series of interest groups, and rallying the country at this time with the media that operates 24/7 means you've got to find some way to include the, in the case of Obama, the 60 million people who voted for Mitt Romney. And there needs to be a strategy in that the strategy of sticking your finger in these people’s eye all the time I don't think will work.

How refreshing to see a member of the media actually stand up for people that didn't vote for Obama.

Makes you wonder what got into Woodward's coffee.

Noel Sheppard
Noel Sheppard