in their own words
 |
|
|
|
 Trumping Principles - White House Press Briefing by Robert Gibbs 2/4/09 — Friday, February 06, 2009 — Q The President talked yesterday in his interviews about not wanting there to be two standards for people, to understand there shouldn't be -- how then should people understand why it was okay for Timothy Geithner to go ahead in his job, but not Tom Daschle? MR. GIBBS: Well, as I said yesterday, obviously Senator Daschle made a decision to withdraw his appointment. And as I said yesterday, Mr. Geithner has gone through a process in the Senate that included passage through committee and passage through the full Senate with bipartisan support and is now the Secretary of the Treasury. So I don't -- Q Is there not a double-standard there? I mean, isn't -- MR. GIBBS: No, again, I -- there's a lot of -- we can look a lot of rearview-mirroring in different decisions, but I think the President probably did what many people don't here in this town a lot, and that's take responsibility and set a very high standard for himself and for this administration. Jeff. Q Robert, as you know, the President -- he said several times in those interviews that he screwed up or he messed up. What exactly does he believe that he screwed up? MR. GIBBS: Well, I think that -- taking, for example, the appointment for HHS, that obviously making health care more affordable is a, as you've heard him talk about a lot for many years, a very important issue to him. He worked on it in Springfield, he talked about it on the campaign trail, and hopes to make a significant impact on that important issue as the President of the United States. He found Senator Daschle, he believed, uniquely qualified to pursue health care reform that would meet many of the goals that he shared, despite making a mistake. I think in the interest of getting those appointments, the President trumped the principles that he laid out in the campaign. And he took responsibility for that. Health Care | Nominees | Obama Administration | Press Briefing | Robert Gibbs | White House Press Corps Labels: Health Care, Nominees, Obama Administration, Press Briefing, Robert Gibbs, White House Press Corps >> Full Story
Posted by White House Press Corps @ 3:54:00 PM
|
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
< whpc home