The Adventures of Bob Woodward and the Obama Spin Machine

Incredibly, liberal legend Bob Woodward has now become a bete noire to the left, and a darling to the right. So much so, he’s been invited to attend the CPAC 2013 Blogbash. So much so that The GOP House Conference created this “Adventures of Bob Woodward comic strip:

President Obama and His Operatives at the White House Proposed the Sequester

• “Then-OMB Director Jack Lew, now the White House chief of staff, and White House Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors pitched the idea to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). (Bob Woodward book could bolster Republican attack on W.H., Politico, Austin Wright, September 7, 2012)
• “Lew, Nabors, Sperling and Bruce Reed, Biden’s chief of staff, had initially decided to propose using language from the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings deficit reduction law as the model for the trigger. It seemed tough enough to apply to the current situation. It would require a sequester with half the cuts from Defense, and the other half from domestic programs.” (The Price Of Politics, Bob Woodward, 2012, p. 341)
• “It was Obama’s negotiating team that came up with the idea for defense cuts in 2011.” (“The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.” Politifact, October, 24, 2012)
• “What the president said is not correct (regarding sequestration),” Woodward told POLITICO Tuesday. “He’s mistaken. And it’s refuted by the people who work for him.” (Bob Woodward: Obama ‘mistaken’ on sequester, Politico, Leigh Munsil, October 23, 2012)
• “Woodward reports in his book that White House Office of Management Director Jack Lew and Legislative Affairs Director Rob Nabors took the proposal for sequestration to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and then it was presented to congressional Republicans.” (Bob Woodward: Obama ‘mistaken’ on sequester, Politico, Leigh Munsil, October 23, 2012)
• “Republicans demanded spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt limit last summer. The White House and Democrats in Congress insisted that steep cuts to the Defense Department accompany the domestic-spending reductions favored by the GOP.” (President Obama’s big sequester gamble, Politico, Jonathan Allen and Scott Wong, October 23, 2012)

President Obama Doubled-Down on His Sequester

• “My message to [Congress] is simple: No. I will veto any effort to get rid of those automatic spending cuts to domestic and defense spending. There will be no easy off-ramps on this one.” (President Obama,Super Committee Statement, November 21, 2011)

House Republicans Acted to Replace the Obama Sequester

House Republicans took steps to replace President Obama’s sequestration, passing bills on two separate occasions. Neither of which the Democratic-controlled Senate considered.

• H.R. 5652, Sequester Replacement Reconciliation Act
• H.R. 6684, Spending Reduction Act of 2012

In case you missed him on Hannity, last night, Woodward said that although he never used the word, “threat” to describe Sperling’s email,  it’s no way for a White House to operate. He’s standing by everything he has said regarding the sequester, including his charge that Obama’s moving the goalposts.

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