Wanted: More bite from Obama the Great Nibbler

By Dana Milbank,
WashPost
Published: August 26

Labor boss Richard Trumka is not one to nibble around the edges.

He declined a plate of bacon and eggs when sitting down to breakfast with a group of reporters this week because, the AFL-CIO president explained, he was concerned he might spit out a mouthful if he didn’t like a question. The stains on his Brooks Brothers necktie suggested this was more than a theoretical possibility.

So perhaps it should not be a surprise that Trumka has lost patience with the Great Nibbler in our civic life, President Obama. The president, he complained, has been doing “little nibbly things around the edge that aren’t going to make a difference and aren’t going to solve the problem” with the economy. Obama, he protested, decided to “work with the Tea Party to offer cuts to middle-class programs like Social Security.” And, Trumka accused, Obama has limited his proposals to “those little things that he thinks others will immediately accept.”

Without bolder action on the economy, Trumka told the gathering, organized by the Christian Science Monitor, “I think he doesn’t become a leader anymore, and he’s being a follower.”

(More here.)