Circular Firing Squad Greets Stimulus Bill

Tennessee Dem Jim Cooper finds himself in hot water after dissing Pelosi

Just his third week in office and President Obama can already enjoy some widely aired rumors of Democratic infighting.

You know that stimulus bill that all the Republicans hated because of its terrible fornication subsidies and wasteful spending on jobs-creating infrastructure projects? That was all Nancy Pelosi's fault, according to the Tennessee Democrat Jim Cooper, who revealed over the weekend that the White House wasn't all that keen on the legislation.

Of course a day later he had to recant the whole thing because it made the president and Democratic leadership in the House look awful.

Several days after he told Liberadio(!), "I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I actually got some quiet encouragement from the Obama folks for what I’m doing," Cooper had to take it all back. Yesterday he told Politico, "At no point did any member of President Obama’s staff encourage me to vote against the House economic recovery bill.” Hmm, fishy!

So this all makes Nancy Pelosi look like a dissent-quashing little tyrant who didn't want any input from moderate Democrats, or even the White House, on her precious spending bill. Who would undercut the House Speaker so viciously? Some politics-watchers, like Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher, spy a certain nine-and-a-half-fingered culprit:

That may well be because the architect of this strategy is Rahm Emanuel himself, and his first step was to leak that Obama was commiserating with House Republicans about how awful the bill was. Then using Jim Cooper as a cutout, it was leaked that Obama was unhappy with the waste in the stimulus bill and that his people had urged Cooper to vote against the bill and oppose Pelosi.

O the intrigue! It is certainly nice to see the Democrats settling into the same dumb circus of lies that typified the last administration, and no doubt a comfort to all involved that, if the stimulus bill fails, there will be plenty of blame to go around.

Sara K. Smith writes for NBC and Wonkette. She hopes that Rahm Emanuel doesn't come looking for her next.

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