HuffPost's Ryan Grim Weighs In On Obama's Record Of Change (VIDEO)

Is Barack Obama succeeding in bringing change? Nine months into his presidency, MSNBC asked that question and invited HuffPost's Senior Congressional Reporter Ryan Grim and Politics Daily's Matt Lewis to weigh in.

Grim wondered about the chances for change in a divisive political atmosphere. The Republican party, Grim argued, believes it's in their best interests to resist and block change. By being the party of "No" Grim argues, the GOP hopes to regain a political majority.

Lewis accused Obama of misleading Americans during the election about the kind of change that he would seek, saying, "He sold us a false bill of goods." Lewis painted Obama as a leader who misread public opinion about the type of change America wanted.

Grim refuted Lewis's claims, calling it a "false narrative" and pointed to majority support for the public option and legislation to curb emissions and stop climate change.

Watch the discussion:

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Comments

[jimthefireman]

It is interesting to note that there is some agreement between the two of them about what is happening and how. Those who are on the conservative side want Obama to do exactly the same as Bush but have better results and are alarmed at the idea that "change" might involve doing things differently, despite the fact that it (public health care) works well in every other western democracy in the world!
Liberals see that Bush/Cheney failed the country disasterously and cannot see why now they have a new President with a clear mandate that the change they crave will not happen overnight.
Well Obama may be the President, but he is not Stalin (despite what some on Fox may say) and he still needs to work through the existing political and legal channels.
For good reasons (and some not at all good reasons) these channels actively prevent rapid change and there are plenty of Democratic representatives who do not hold themselves to the same ideals that Obama (and the majority of those who support him) do. There are also many many hard working, otherwise moral and generous hearted people in the US who have been burned too often by snake oil salesmen to recognise truth the first time it is presented, or to see beyond the mask of a "news" presenter who seems to be "one of them" and speaks a language they believe they understand.
It will take time for them to understand.

[Charmed]

The media really needs to stop trying to write the history books before the day ends.

[masher]

Folks just need to put their Obama Love Goggles down and look at what Obama really did and then compare it to what Bush did. There really isn't much of a difference. The style is different and the rhetoric is different. But we still have all the worst of the Bush years anti-worker regulations. Obama won't even talk about ending them and there is bipartisan support for things like fixing H-1B. Again, Obama won't even talk about it.