During live MSNBC coverage leading up to President Obama's Wednesday 1PM ET press conference, former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather urged the President to aggressively take on Republicans in the wake of the midterm elections: "[Obama] has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs." [Audio available here [1]]
Rather declared that the President should "take the Harry Truman, who lost big in1946 and said 'I'm going to fight them. I'm going to fight them.'...He has to be a fighter." He lamented how Obama's "reputation as president so far is he's a little soft. He plays soft." Rather concluded: "He's got to demonstrate, and I think in this news conference, 'yes, I will work with them, but I'm prepared to fight them on things that really matter to me.'"
Here is a transcript of the exchange:
12:52PM ET
CHRIS JANSING: And, you know, Dan Rather, famously President Bush, when he was in the same situation, said, 'we took a thumping.' I don't know if we're going to hear those words from Barack Obama. What do you think we will hear?
DAN RATHER: Well, I think we're going to hear a lot about jobs. He's going to say in effect, 'people, I hear you, message received. I'm resetting, I'm rebooting.' But it will be very interesting to see whether in the news conference and what follows later, does he adopt the Bill Clinton model - after Clinton lost so much in 1994 - of triangulating-
JANSING: Move to the center.
RATHER: While the other party is out swimming steal their underwear kind of thing. Or does he take the Harry Truman, who lost big in1946 and said 'I'm going to fight them. I'm going to fight them.' And my own personal opinion, what will work best for him is a combination. He has to realize that Mitch McConnell has virtually said so that politically he wants to cut out his heart and throw his liver to the dogs. He has to be a fighter. His reputation as president so far is he's a little soft. He plays soft. He's got to demonstrate, and I think in this news conference, 'yes, I will work with them, but I'm prepared to fight them on things that really matter to me,' and then he has to make it clear what matters to him and that had better be jobs.
-Kyle Drennen is a news analyst at the Media Research Center. You can follow him on Twitter here. [2]