POLICIES - David Obey (D-Okl)

"Shields and Brooks Assess Economy's Signals, NYC Bomb Plot Suspect" PBS Newshour Transcript

Excerpt (section on David Obey)

JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): Let me, just in our last minute or so here -- I want to come back to politics. You mentioned David Obey, a very powerful figure for a long time, and announced he will not run again. What's the significance?

MARK SHIELDS (syndicated columnist): Significance is that David Obey was almost unique among political figures in this town -- 41 years. You never saw him on the -- on the cable talk shows. He was never on the Washington, D.C., social circuit. He was grumpy. He was hard-working. He was smarter. He was an amazingly effective legislator. And he was truly remarkable, in my judgment, and unlike anybody else who came to this town, he absolutely said what he meant and he meant what he said. And he said the same thing to whoever he was talking to. And he got in fights with presidents of his own party and leaders of his own party.

But he said to me, he said, You learn early on in this town that our society is wired, and it's wired to the advantage of those who are privileged. And the one thing public policy can do is give a break to people who aren't privileged and don't have that advantage. And I think he spent his whole career doing it. And he will be missed because he was truly one of a kind.

JEFFREY BROWN: And of course, this announcement plays into this question of how Democrats -- the prospect for Democrats.

DAVID BROOKS (The New York Times): Right, and they have bad prospects, though there are not a lot of retirees, to be fair. There are chunks, but not a lot. I agree with everything Mark said about David Obey, but I still think he ill served the country in a crucial respect. Obama comes in, promises a new style of politics. Whether that was realistic or not, I'm not sure. But immediately, there's a stimulus package that goes through the House Appropriations Committee. And I remember watching the mark-up, and David Obey was as rude and as ruthless towards the Republicans in that committee as, frankly, Republicans had been to Democrats when they were in power. And that set us back.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, that will have to be...

MARK SHIELDS: He wrote the stimulus package, and he said, "It's the unpopular things you do that you're most proud of." And he's proud of what he wrote.