Obama: “…the big difference…you’ve got me.”

Politico’s Glenn Thrush finds it “jaw-dropping” that, according to retiring Representative Marion Barry (D-Arkansas) President Obama believed his “personal popularity” would rescue blue dog Democrats from voter anger over the Health Insurance bill and other supposedly “progressive” initiatives. Thrush quotes from the story by reporter Jane Fullerton of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (subscription only):

Berry recounted meetings with White House officials, reminiscent of some during the Clinton days, where he and others urged them not to force Blue Dogs “off into that swamp” of supporting bills that would be unpopular with voters back home.

“I’ve been doing that with this White House, and they just don’t seem to give it any credibility at all,” Berry said. “They just kept telling us how good it was going to be. The president himself, when that was brought up in one group, said, ‘Well, the big difference here and in ’94 was you’ve got me.’ We’re going to see how much difference that makes now.” [snip]

“I began to preach last January that we had already seen this movie and we didn’t want to see it again because we know how it comes out,” said Arkansas’ 1st District congressman, who worked in the Clinton administration before being elected to the House in 1996… “I just began to have flashbacks to 1993 and ’94. No one that was here in ’94, or at the day after the election felt like. It certainly wasn’t a good feeling.”

Now I have no sympathy for any of the blue dog Dems, who as Jane Hamsher points out have grabbed all the lobbyist money they were offered and

were responsible for jamming every single shitty piece of lobbyist-written legislation into the health care bill. They decided early on to try to make the House bill more like the Senate bill, because they said that would be more popular. Take a look at the polling — it isn’t by a long shot. In swing districts like Berry’s.

If Berry wants to blame anyone, he should look to his Blue Dog bretheren who have been soaking up the lobbyist cash — and delivering.

It doesn’t surprise me anymore that Obama would make a claim like that, but I still find myself wondering what is going in the man’s head. What kind of person is he? Is he really as empty, self-involved, and passionless as he seems? And what does it say about us as a country that we would put such a person into the most powerful job in the world?

This is an open thread.