Jane Hamsher details the extremely aggressive tactics the White House and House leadership used to coerce liberal environmentalist members to vote for the cap-and-trade bill despite their belief that it helped polluters more than it did anything else (and remember their ability to do that the next time they claim that a bill they ostensibly support simply couldn't pass because it lacked the necessary votes). Jane quotes from a Politico article reporting on White House anger towards environmentalist Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, due to an impassioned floor speech he gave arguing that the bill was so industry-friendly that it would do more harm than good. That article contains this quote:
The White House is smoking mad at Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), who says he's voting against the climate bill — despite the lobbying of the entire First Family in the Oval Office last night.
If the bill goes down, Obama won't forget Doggett's role, Democrats say.
It's "stunning that he would ignore the wishes not just of his president, but of his constituents and the country,” said an administration official.
This has become an emerging theme among both the White House and House leadership: that progressive members of Congress have an obligation to carry out "the wishes of the President" even when they disagree (now, apparently, it's "stunning" when they defy his dictates). That was the same subservient mentality that led House Democrats who admitted they opposed the war supplemental spending and/or the foreign bank bailout to nonetheless vote for the bill: because they President favored it. The duty of Congress is not to obey the wishes of the President.
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