Obama’s Honeymoon Lasted Zero Days

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


In Do Not Ask What Good We Do, Robert Draper reports on a long dinner in which Republicans mapped out their campaign strategy against President Obama:

The dinner lasted nearly four hours. They parted company almost giddily. The Republicans had agreed on a way forward:

Go after Geithner…..Show united and unyielding opposition to the president’s economic policies….Begin attacking vulnerable Democrats on the airwaves.

This sounds unremarkable except for one thing: it took place on Inauguration Day, 2009. That’s how long the Obama honeymoon lasted: zero days. Most of the Republican leadership was dead set against compromising in any way from the very first day.

By now that’s not exactly news. But it certainly belies the Republican claim that they were willing to work with Obama but he simply never made the effort. They weren’t.

Fact:

Mother Jones was founded as a nonprofit in 1976 because we knew corporations and billionaires wouldn't fund the type of hard-hitting journalism we set out to do.

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

Fact:

Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate