Administration shown to be lying about “no involvement” in Wisconsin protests

In an article on Sunday which I had intended to post but didn’t, the New York Times reported:

Administration officials said Sunday that the White House had done nothing to encourage the demonstrations in Wisconsin—nor was it doing so in Ohio, Florida and other states where new Republican governors are trying to make deep cuts to balance their budgets. [Italics added.]

And, officials and union leaders said, reports of the involvement of the Democratic National Committee—specifically Organizing for America, the grass-roots network born of Mr. Obama’s 2008 campaign—were overblown to start with and were being inflated by Republicans sensing political advantage.

My first thought was, could the administration be believed on this point? Probably not. But it was certainly interesting that they were denying that the DNC and OfA were involved in the protests or were saying that their involvement had been exaggerated.

Today Alana Goodman at Commentary says that the denial shows that Obama sees the protests in Wisconsin as a losing cause, and that this is the reason he is trying to distance himself from them. Goodman also mentions an article proving that the denial is false:

[A]pparently someone forget to tell the DNC’s communication director Bob Woodhouse to scrub his Twitter feed to reflect this new strategy. Doug Ross has pointed out a Feb. 17 Tweet from Woodhouse saying that the White House was “proudly” playing a role in the protest.

Blogger Doug Ross brings out that the denials of any DNC or OfA involvement are

outright fabrications. In fact, Brad Woodhouse, the Democratic Party Communications Director, was spotted crowing about Obama’s involvement as recently as Thursday.

Ross then shows a screen shot of the “tweet” by Woodhouse which says in part:

… BarackObama’s pol arm DNC/OFA playing role in WI protests: …
Yup!!!

Here is an image of the tweet:

Further, Ross tells us, Obama’s campaign organization Organizing For America is boasting of its involvement in the Wisconsin protests. Here is the OfA’s proud announcement:

Now that’s pretty spectacular proof that the administration is baldfacedly lying. However, I question Goodman’s interpretation that this shows that Obama sees the protests as a losing cause. Rather, his denial of involvement is consistent with the Good Cop / Bad Cop strategy which, according to Stanley Kurtz, Obama has practiced through his entire career:

The idea is that a seemingly moderate “good cop” politician works on the inside of government, while coordinating his moves with nasty Alinskyite “bad cops” on the outside. Reports that Obama’s own organizers helped put together the Madison protests fit the model. That coordination is necessary to achieve Obama’s real goal: kicking off a national grassroots movement of the left that he can quietly manage, while keeping his distance when necessary.

Obama’s good-cop role allows him the flexibility occasionally to criticize protest tactics that cross the line. Yet the reality is that our presidential good cop and his bad cop buddies are in this together. Intimidating protests at the homes of enemy politicians are par for the course with Alinskyites (and, yes, Alinskyites think of their targets as “enemies”). Obama understands all this, and you can be sure that he’s on board with the protests held at the homes of Wisconsin Republican legislators, whether he disowns them or not.

As I show in Radical-in-Chief, Obama began his organizing career planning and participating in just this sort of intimidating protest (a fact largely hidden in Dreams from My Father). As Obama moved into politics, he switched to the good cop role and funneled foundation money to his Alinskyite pals, while using their hardball protests to support his legislative agenda. Meanwhile Obama perfected his calm, post-partisan persona. It’s all a game developed by the president’s Alinskyite (and socialist) organizing mentors.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 22, 2011 09:16 AM | Send