Robert Gibbs' "modest salary" not enough

It is a shame that I and most conservatives are so clumsy at it that our counter-attacks in kind are so transparent. What's even worse, though, is that you haven't recognized the real pros who've been practicing it on the public payroll for the past couple of years.

Wait - who's outraged that he's quitting to get more money?

the only discussion I see is whether or not $172k constitutes "relatively modest" - particularly from the lips of the man who tells us $250k is "rich"

Just make sure you're not so stupid that you lie under oath about doing it with an employee in the Oval Office and forget to clean up after yourself.

$172K<$250k. Ergo he is working class like the rest of us.

By all means, prove it. Scott McClellan resigned under Bush2 - should be a thread to back up your claim then, right?

Actressmichelle really isn't very bright.

of course that context matters - but that context was never EVER applied when BO called those making $250k "rich" - was it?

In any case, EVERYONE who accepts a highly placed government job knows they are investing those hours and that work in the FUTURE. They know full well they can triple (at a minimum) their salary when they "graduate" to the private sector. Gibb's current pay is merely a down payment on the compensation he was always going to get once he moved into that circle.

Yeah, socialism is all about looking after the insurance lobbyists.

The fact that Obama has so little public relations sense that he calls this level of income "modest" by any standard in the American economy of today shows just how badly he really needs a good PR guy. Either that or someone needs to get his teleprompter fixed STAT.

On the contrary Republicans have perfected the art. While voting for the party that will advance their economic interests (which is fine with me) with a pro-business, lax regulation, anti-labor agenda, they have convinced a large amount of people who have different economic interests to support the republican agenda. Fishermen in Florida voting for Rick Scott, who's first order of business is to gut the environmental regulations that saved their liveliehood is just one example. People who should join and be active in unions won't join them, while their real earnings power goes down, their working conditions get worse and their pensions disappear and get replaced by 401k's (if they're lucky). These are the same people supporting the Tea Party movement while telling the government to keep their hands off Medicare.

It kind of reminds of a Mad Magazine cartoon where American Indian kids were watching a Western Movie and rooting for the cowboys to shoot the Indians...

No, sorry, when it comes to class warfare and cultivating cognitive dissonance today's conservatives/republicans are without peer.

I agree.

For the position and power Gibbs holds and the amount of money he could (and will) make in the private sector, $172K a year IS a relatively modest salary.

It's like the minimum salary in Major League Baseball. To virtually anyone else, that's a tremendous amount of money. When compared to the money made by other players, it's peanuts. It's all about context.

Again, where was that nuance in the discussion of what constitutes "rich"?

In both the cases you describe, the person making the "relatively modest pay" KNOWS there's big payout coming in a few years (if they don't fuck it up) so the modest salary is just "paying dues" for the big payoff.

It's part of the process.

Is BO correct in stating that Gibbs has made less than he will? SURE! Gibbs is, in essence, going into his free agency (to continue the baseball analogy) and NO ONE HERE has begrudged him that, or argued he's not about to make a LOT more money.

The only theme to this thread is that is politically boneheaded to tell people (a) "the mean old rich are the problem; and (b) anyone over $250k is rich and then turn around and say that a guy making 3 times what that voter is making (on average) has been sacrificing when he can go out and be rich.

It's not that it's not true that he can make a lot more money - it's that the left has spent so much time demonizing making a lot more money that the message is inconsistent.


I, for one, am all for Gibbs making every dollar he can make off the circumstances he finds himself in - but it's not my side of the aisle that's been shouting "GREED!!!" every time someone tries to maximize their income.

Nova, but wouldn't you agree that Barry O is not talking about the amount of tax that someone making $172k should pay, even someone on their proverbial entry level contract?

Wouldn't you also agree that you're full of shit? IMHO you are.

I agree that's not what his context was today - just noting the cognitive dissonance.

That's a silly discussion then, since context is everything.

I find that most discussions are silly here viewed from one side of the spectrum or the other. Rare (and special) is the thread where people from across the spectrum find the discussion relevant and compelling.

Very nearly every post in this thread is mind numbingly retarded.

$172,000 a year may not be enough to make you fantastically wealthy, but it's enough to make sure that you can live quite comfortably and not worry about money so long as you aren't gratuitously spendthrift, even in Washington D.C. That someone would feel the need to quit a $172,000/yr government job solely in order to make more is strongly indicative of the fact that such a person doesn't have the brains to earn that much on merit.

On the other hand, feigning outrage over the fact that the alpha personalities who make up government and happen to be in the political party you oppose can't stand the fact that someone else earns more than they do marks you as either too naive or hypocritical to be taken seriously.

My beef isn't whether or not Gibbs deserved the money or if he felt he could make more on the talk circuit dishing out the behind the scenes dirt. My beef is why were We The People paying one man three times the national family income to be the President's spin doctor and mouthpiece.

Mike and the rest of the crew immediately turned to the spin game as well to try to attack their political opponents. If they'd stop to notice, my initial take on this was that this kind of thing had been going on far too long in D.C.

My response to garamet was that power should be taken away from government in general so that whatever slight justification for these "modest" D.C. minimum wages could be cut or even eliminated.

Yet Mike's gotta make it about some partisan issue. Both sides have been abusing the revolving door.

The answer isn't to quit paying people salaries they deserve. It's to cut the need for that position in the first place.

edit - for typos

He could live in Anacostia or District Heights or something...

And Mikey "forgot" that Palin was roundly criticized for quitting as she did.

Palin was criticized for quitting, not for making money. She can make all she wants for all I care.

In today's hyperpartisan environment, everything is politicized. Fox criticizes Obama for wearing flip-flops for Chrissake.

With them scrawny legs, if he's wearing flip-flops he's probably wearing shorts, too. The man needs some good fried chicken and pecan pie.

Obama mouthpiece Robert Gibbs was forced out by new henchman William Daley

huh... Is this just more of the Chicago way?

Everyone needs some good fried chicken and pecan pie!

That "need" is part of the reason I've had to watch my weight!

It took 58 posts for somebody to post this? We're slipping.

By whom? I never heard a single conservative criticize her for abandoning the people of Alaska. Most of them are too afraid of her to say anything bad about her at all. Or they think they have a shot with her in the sack.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I never saw it.

Only 170k? I don't take a shit for under 200k.