“It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger,” President Obama said on Thursday of the banks he’s chosen to bail out. “You don’t want them to blow up. But you’ve got to kind of talk [to] them, ease that finger off the trigger.”
It may be the world’s shortest-lived gaffe: the brief outrage it spawned was of course entirely subsumed by the uproar over his comment to Jay Leno that his attempt at bowling was “like the Special Olympics or something.”
From giving contradictory statements on the economy to making gaffes about the Special Olympics, team Obama has lost the communications magic that propelled it to the White House.
Some would say it’s minor stuff — and it is: a clumsy simile for our terror-ridden time, followed by a clumsier joke for our P.C.-ridden time. But presidents don’t generally get a break on minor stuff. Gerald Ford, the finest athlete in Oval Office history, stumbles getting off a plane and America gets stuck with Chevy Chase’s career for the next three decades; Ronald Reagan, who brought about the perhaps the most significant reduction of nuclear weapons of the cold war, makes a bad joke about bombing Russia during a microphone sound check and is forever painted as a paranoid warmonger; George H.W. Bush, pork-rind eater, gives a befuddled look at a grocery-store scanner and will never shake the reputation as being out of touch with the common man; Dan Quayle, scion of a newspaper family, misspells the name of a common nightshade at a school spelling bee and his cements his reputation as an airhead; George W. Bush … well, one doesn’t know where to start with George W. Bush, but pretzels come to mind. It seems that only Vice President Joe Biden has managed to gaffe himself up the career ladder.
Besides, minor stuff often contains hints at the larger picture. “It was brilliant communications skills that carried Obama to the presidency,” note Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen of the Politico. “But the discipline and strategic focus of the campaign have yet to move into the White House. The story of the day often catches the president flat-footed or on the defensive — and regularly undercut by fellow Democrats. To Obama’s dismay, he is learning that successful presidential communications is only in part — often a fairly small part — about personal eloquence.”
The MSM didn’t seem to make much of the Special Olympics joke — The Times’s initial online story on the “Tonight Show” appearance didn’t even mention it , nor did The Washington Post’s news article on the president’s California swing – but one Special Olympian and plenty of folks in the blogosphere took note.
“So how do you categorize Obama’s statement?” asks Patterico. “Poor judgment? Thoughtlessness? Or TELLING IT LIKE IT IS?!?! Don’t get me wrong; I wouldn’t really countenance the disabled flying into an outrage over this. But I do think — like the “putting lipstick on a pig” comment — that it shows Obama has a tin ear sometimes. And that he’s often a poor communicator, despite all we’ve heard to the contrary.”
“One almost gets tired of saying it, but one must say it, still: Can you IMAGINE what the press and the Dems would do with that, had Bush said it,” adds the Anchoress, with a heavy sigh. “President Bush was no cool cat, but he was a master of self-deprecating humor. I give Obama credit for trying it out…but maybe he’d better practice it more! Patterico notes that the press is playing it down. That’s not surprising. It was a failed attempt at humor, and you know what? I’d love to ignore it, I really would. And I’ll start ignoring these Obama gaffes just as soon as the press gives them the same unending coverage they gave to Bush’s. When the double-standards end.”
Salon’s Alex Koppelman disagrees:
Typically there really is no double standard on these sorts of things. It’s not perfectly analogous, but remember that in 2006 Bush inadvertently teased a legally blind reporter for wearing sunglasses intended to help preserve his remaining vision. The world didn’t end. And just last year, Vice President Dick Cheney made a joke about inbreeding in West Virginia. (Again, not strictly analogous, but keep in mind why inbreeding is taboo in the first place.) It was such a non-story that I, frankly, didn’t even remember it happening until I stumbled upon it while looking for a link about the joke Bush made — and I didn’t write about it at the time it occurred, either.
Good point, but it might have been more convincing if made by somebody who hasn’t made any pretzel jokes about president Bush.
As for the suicide-bomber line, the Weekly Standard’s William Kristol is less alarmed by the bad taste than by what it might say about the president’s outlook on terrorists: “Is the president’s view really that the way to deal with suicide bombers is to try to “ease them off” the trigger rather than to shoot them if possible before they act?”
In terms of pure miscommunication, however, no event compares to the president’s appearance with Prime Minister Brian Cowan of Ireland, during which a Teleprompter malfunction caused Cowan to repeat parts of the Obama speech and the president to thank himself for inviting everyone to the event. This brought not only the expected complaints from the right about the president being pre-scripted, but even spurred some wag to give the speechmaking device its own blog.
Still, Nile Gardiner of The Telegraph thinks that, all in all, the luck of the Irish held.
The contrast between the White House welcome this month for the Irish and British Prime Ministers could not have been greater. Brian Cowen, the Taoiseach of Ireland, is hardly a world figure, but he received the kind of red carpet treatment in Washington that would normally be reserved for royalty.
The Irish PM has no influence whatsoever over the policies of the United States. Yet he was greeted for a 40-minute meeting in the Oval Office on Tuesday by not only the president but also Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and National Security Adviser Jim Jones. In addition, Obama hosted a lavish dinner party for 400 guests in Cowen’s honour to mark St. Patrick’s Day, where both the U.S. and Irish leaders spoke (teleprompter fiasco aside). At Michelle Obama’s request, the White House fountain was even turned green to mark the event.
When Gordon Brown was received at the White House at the start of March he was denied a press conference as well as an official dinner and was treated in a humiliating, demeaning fashion. Brown may well be a lame duck at home, but he is still the representative of 60 million Britons and a nation that has sacrificed blood and treasure alongside America time after time. The whole affair was hugely insulting to the British people.
For many, the ultimate symbol of the dissing of Gordon Brown involved the ritual exchange of presents: while the Browns came bearing “an ornamental pen holder made from the timbers of the Victorian anti-slave ship HMS Gannet” as well as books and outfits for the First Children, Sasha and Malia, the Obamas responded with a 25-disc set of classic American moves, which The Daily Mail’s Ian Drury called “as exciting as a pair of socks.”
While, again, this seems minor, insult was added to insult this week when it turned out that the regional-coding system applied to DVD’s rendered the movies unplayable at 10 Downing Street.
The Corner’s Mark Steyn doesn’t think Giftgate ends here:
I haven’t run into Gordon Brown in over a decade, but my memory of the last time I met him in a TV green room is of a glowering misanthropic type who enjoys nursing a grudge. What doesn’t go around (in the DVD player) comes around. When the president and his Teleprompter visit London for the G20 summit in a couple of weeks, it would be a tragedy were Barack Oprompta to rise for his big speech to find nothing but the words “Wrong Region” flashing on his screen (although I’m sure the Queen would be very polite and string along and make all the swells stand up and join the toast to “Ron Region”, whoever he is).
Trivial stuff? Perhaps. But there are plenty of similar failures to synchronize on issues that nobody thinks are unimportant. According to VandeHei and Allen of the Politico, Lawrence Summers, the president’s chief economic adviser, “provided lifeless academic reasoning for why there was little Obama could do to prevent the payouts” to A.I.G. executives. Yet the next day, President Obama was in front of the microphones insisting that the Treasury would “pursue every single legal avenue to block these bonuses.”
Matthew Continetti of Weekly Standard gave his take on the flip-flop:
Why did Obama shift so quickly? Here are two reasons. One, the administration may finally be learning that, while it can still blame the economy on Bush (for now), it does own the bailouts. And any populist furor over the bailouts won’t just be directed backward at Bush. It will also be projected forward onto Obama and Geithner.
Second, any day now the Obama administration will reveal the details of and begin to implement their bank rescue plan. That plan requires the government to provide leverage for private financial institutions. The private institutions will put up some money, sure. But, to get them to do that, the government will have to put up A LOT of money. Another trillion, perhaps. And that means public support is absolutely necessary. Public support that may slip away if the AIG problem isn’t resolved soon.
Well, we’ll see about the rest, but he was certainly right about the trillion.
As for my assumption that nobody could find the A.I.G. situation unimportant, there were a couple of exceptions. First, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told The Times that the bonus kerfuffle “is a big distraction” in efforts to fix the economy. Then David Axelrod, the strategic genius of the Obama campaign, told the Washington Post that “People are not sitting around their kitchen tables thinking about AIG, … they are thinking about their own jobs,” which not only didn’t tie in very well with the president’s “every single legal avenue” approach but seemed oblivious to polls like this one.
This left the Plum Line’s Greg Sargent shaking his head: “Again, this just seems weird politically,” he wrote of attempts to pretend that folks aren’t outraged about the issue “at a time when Republicans are moving aggressively to paint Obama as too passive on the issue and position themselves as the outraged and heroic defenders of the taxpayers?”
“It’s not ‘weird’ — it’s panic,” responds Commentary’s Jennifer Rubin:
The entire crew is drowning in a public feeding frenzy of their own making. So they are throwing out whatever argument pops to mind. The contracts can’t be changed! Oh, we’re going to do everything we can to stop this! Oh, who cares!?
And then the president gets into the act, comparing AIG execs to suicide bombers. Is that really the right metaphor for the leader of the Free World?
You sense even their widely admired political skills are buckling under the weight of events and the scrutiny that goes with occupying the White House. It’s a good thing they don’t like big government or spending money, or we’d really have to worry about them getting in over their heads.
The always-interesting Daniel Drezner has come up with an analogy that either exonerates Emanuel and Axelrod or simply shares their tone-deafness:
AIG bonuses are to the left side of the political spectrum as congressional earmarks are to the right side of the spectrum.
Why? Well, these two things have a surprising amount in common.
* Neither of them poll terribly well;
* Both of them reflect waste, inattention, and borderline corruption in handling the government’s money;
* Both issues force the other party to say something to indicate that they don’t support these things;
* Earmarks represent a very small percentage of the omnibus spending bill; bonuses represent a very small percentage of the AIG bailout;
* So, given the current economic situation, both of them are huge honking distractions and do not matter a whole hell of a lot.
Good arguments, and Drezner, and academic, is free to live by them — but do we really think Axelrod and Emanuel (and, by extension, the president) have the same sort of latitude?
On another front, remember when during the campaign John McCain said that “the fundamentals of our economy are sound” and Barack Obama shot back with ““Senator McCain, what economy are you talking about?” Well, what economy was Christina Romer, head of the Council of Economic Advisers, talking about on Sunday when she said that “The fundamentals are sound”? The same one as Peter Orszag was talking about a week earlier when he said that “fundamentally, the economy is weak.”
Don Surber tries to figure out what has happened since McCain’s comments last September that might have brought on Romer’s optimism:
What has changed? Is it the 3,000-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average or the full 2 points increase in the unemployment level from 6.1% in September to 8.1% in February?
All I know is President Obama has bad-mouthed the economy for 6 months, which undermines investor confidence. His willingness to spend trillions we do not have on junk we do not need is frightening the Chinese, who own much of our debt.
Instead of answers, we get partisanship.
The Obama plan seems to be do the wrong thing and then blame Republicans if it fails.
But you know something? McCain was right. The fundamentals were there in September to ride this worldwide recession out. The recovery would have begun by now, if Obama had not pushed fear and if Obama had not borrowed another trillion.
I am optimistic that the economy will rebound. Obama will take credit. But his new, expensive, socialistic programs are fundamentally unsound and we shall pay for all this in the long run.
The mixed messaging continued with the conflicting stories of Secretary Geithner and Chris Dodd, the Democrat who heads the Senate Banking Committee, over who exactly was responsible for ensuring the A.I.G. bonuses in the bailout legislation.
E.D. Kain at the League of Ordinary Gentlemen seems to think Geithner came out looking the worst.
I have to say, of all the changes the new Administration has implemented so far the Treasury is the least comforting – which is probably the absolutely worst possible thing Obama could have done at this point (within reason). Geithner is not a reassuring figure and things like this just make the whole operation look bad. I guess I have a hard time understanding why more hasn’t been done to at least keep up appearances. Half of this is illusion. The government needs to provide the illusion of confidence if they lack the real thing. This isn’t happening. People are nervous, and rightfully so.
And Michelle Malkin thinks the steamroller is still picking up speed:
Can he get anything straight? TurboTax failed him. So, apparently, did Outlook calendar.
Hapless Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner claims he didn’t find out about the AIG bonus issue until March 10. This was contradicted by AIG president Edward Liddy’s testimony before Congress earlier this week. Liddy was right. Geithner was wrong. And it’s all on videotape. DealBlog this morning referenced a House hearing on March 3 in which Geithner was directly questioned about the specific bosnues, a full week before Geithner claims he was made aware of the impending controversy. C-SPAN archives has the clip
So, in terms of job security, where does this leave the top T-Man? On Leno, Obama said that “I think Geithner is doing an outstanding job.” Andrew Sullivan says “I smell a Treasury secretary whose technical skills far surpass even minimal political sense.” But if you’re really curious, this is the place to look.
As for Axelrod and Emanuel’s desire to have Americans look at the bigger picture, after this story broke Friday they may have wished for A.I.G. to stay in the headlines:
President Obama’s budget proposals, if carried out, would produce a staggering $9.3 trillion in total deficits over the next decade, much more than the White House has predicted, the Congressional Budget Office said on Friday.
The office’s estimates of deficits in the fiscal years 2010 through 2019 “exceed those anticipated by the administration by $2.3 trillion.”
The deficits under the Obama plan would be $4.9 trillion more than the projected deficits if there were no changes in current laws and policies — what the nonpartisan budget office calls its baseline assumption.
The startling new figures have enormous implications, political as well as fiscal. They are certain to bring new expressions of alarm and dismay from deficit hawks on Capitol Hill, where the president’s $3.6 trillion budget proposal for the next fiscal year, which begins in October, has already stirred debate.
President Obama’s budget director, Peter R. Orszag, conceded in a news briefing on Friday that annual deficits of 4 to 5 percent of gross domestic product, as envisioned in the office’s report, are “ultimately not sustainable.”
Well, at least Geithner might get some breathing room at Orszag steps up to the plate. Washington Monthly’s Steven Benen was on a conference call with the O.M.B. chief this afternoon, who apparently doesn’t think that the deficit projection will tie the administration’s hands.
Orszag emphasized the “uncertainty” in long-term projections, and doesn’t believe there’s any reason to scale back on the budget blueprint currently before Congress. This is especially true, he said, of the health care reform efforts, which the administration believes can be budget neutral over the long term.
What’s more, the Washington Post’s Steven Pearlstein responded to the CBO numbers by explaining that the projections confirm that “the recession is worse than they thought when they did these things last time,” and thus it is “more urgent … for us to spend more money to stimulate the economy.”
So, the president has at least unified his party on that point, right? Well ….. “Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) has said the gloomier CBO forecast would require “adjustments” to Obama’s budget, though he declined to specify what changes would be necessary,” reports The Washington Post. “To reduce the deficits, Democrats could dial back Obama’s spending plans or find new sources of revenue.”
Allahpundit, making common cause with, of all people, former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich, is curious about Conrad’s “adjustments”:
Adjustments in numbers or adjustments to the whole grand Great Society II scheme? Only the former, promises Obama budget guru Peter Orszag, vowing not to sacrifice The One’s health care/energy/climate change/education agenda. To which I say, we’ll see about that. Robert Reich lays it out plainly: “The Wall Street bailout is starting to look like the most expensive tax-supported fiasco in history… The president cannot afford to lose the public’s confidence that his administration is a careful steward of the public’s money. The public was willing to go along with a large stimulus package. But it won’t go along with a second stimulus, and certainly not another TARP. And until the public feels confident that its money isn’t being thrown down a rat hole, it may balk at other ambitious undertakings such as healthcare or education or the environment.” Indeed, which means all that stands between Obama and a congressional revolt is the bank-healin’ mojo of … Tim Geithner. Good luck, Barry.
Well, unless the White House gang and their Congressional allies can all get on the same page, this Sunday’s morning talk shows may rival the afternoon’s March Madness games for interest and conflict. Look forward to Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee and Rep. Barney Frank (“Face the Nation”); Ms. Romer and Rep. Charles Rangel (“Fox News Sunday”); Senator Conrad and Jared Bernstein, the economic adviser to Vice President Biden (“This Week”); Ms. Romer again (“State of the Union); and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (“Newsmakers”). Got your Beltway brackets ready?
——————————
Some fun comments from last week’s column on the men behind the meltdown.
Reader “David” spares CNBC and places the blame for the mortgage mess squarely on A&E: “Why not blame the TV show ‘Flip This House’? I think they’re still on the air, catering to the millions of Americans who expect to buy a house, add a granite countertop, and make a $100,000 profit.. Shouldn’t that be investigated? Surely it is a use of Federal communications licenses to solicit a fraudulent Ponzi scheme?”
And “Rev. Dave” thinks we’re all victims: “I would argue that both Cramer and Stewart are proxies for government failure – and not the media as implied here. Trust me, most folks don’t hang on every word uttered by either of them. I certainly don’t.”
And for a column on the perceived failures of members of various professions — financial broadcasting, journalism, banking, comedy — commenter “John F.” thinks I let one group of professionals off the hook: ” ‘A majority of the 49 economists polled said they were dissatisfied with the administration’s economic policies.’ Are you kidding? Where the hell were any of these ’49 economists’ over the last decade? If ‘they’ didn’t have an opinion then, why should anyone care what they think now? If they knew what was going on, and did not scream from the mountaintop (and please, no references to ‘a paragraph’ in an obscure article), then they have failed in their profession.”
From 1 to 25 of 215 Comments
president obama has the opportunity to rally the country behind him with one act:
— kit ramseyannounce that he and his fellow millionaires in the administration will work for $1 a year, like mayor bloomberg and mr. liddy of AIG.
then challenge the millionaires in congress and business to join him, until our economy is on sound footing. that would be real leadership and change we could believe in!
The macroproblem that the White House has is the Press Secretary. Gibbs is an arrogant smart-ass and he is handling the messaging of the Obama administration like a teenager.
— JimIt’s starting to look as if all they knew how to do was campaign – that goes from the guy at the top down to the guy picking up the DVDs for Brown that don’t work in the UK!
When the criticism of Obama became louder he did what he does best – he want back on the campaign trail — he subconsciously acknowledged that on the Tonight show when he said he was going to take the issues directly to the voters – not the people, not the citizens, but the voters.
Obama has little experience in business or government before being elected. It shows.
— katyCan you people please give me a break? What are you doing now listening to Rush Limpbaugh and Sean Hampster? Talk about something that is pertienent to the American public, not what the “MSM” is doing.
— baracus2009Why?
— Grannieannie TNHarshaw’s column is utter nonsense. Obviously he paid no attention to the overwhelming praise that Obama received for his appearance on the Leno program. Even Fox News admitted that the president did a “good job”. The fact that this article received so few comments indicated that it belongs in the trash bin.
— Louis DiamondObama did not start or continue the Recession.
— supersleuth2Problems are at a maximum in all governmental areas.
The extent of the economic grief has not yet even been determined. The Bush adiministration was not forthcoming, and has hidden mistakes that now result in occasional errors.
The Republicans would love to see Obama fail and blame everything on him; so, they keep hammering at every decision.
The Republicans would rather see Obama fail than rescue the country. Evidently they think this is the road to
their resurrection in public esteem.
In this I think they are ultra-UNPATRIOTIC and UNAMERICAN!
The President is doing his utmost to get his message and his program out; however, the media allows the Republicans to outshout, and throw doubt and lies on every Democratic move.
Obama is doing GREAT in spite of it all, but he is not having a fair chance to get his program across in the designated first 100 days.
The opposition party have their cannons out to blast him every minute of air time in the Media; but,
tax breaks and bonuses for the Super Wealthy do not fly well with the public!
Forced give backs and selected taxation, when fought in the courts, would keep the problem of the previous administration’s failure, before the public.
In the meantime the need for regulating this criminal behavior could proceed in the legislature.
We have plenty of talented and knowledgable business people, who have not received false ‘boneses’ in the US to work towards a solution.
Restructure and work to put the scoundrels out of business, and in prison.
You wrote / copied and pasted three thousand three hundred seventy words about this?
Really?!
Really??!!!
— John LumeaIs this a blog or an epic novel?
— Byronic122Why doesn’t Obama emphasize the change we really need. He touched on it on Leno- 40% of our growth over the past few decades has been from the financial sector—pushing paper without creating,,,
We have to get back to creating, moving society forward…back to the business of progress that built this country. There is a spirit out there, especially now, that he can tap for this.
Just give us direction. Point the way to go, and we will go! Go west, go to the factories, go to the moon, name it.
Mr. President, be precise and get us moving. You want to stop the brain drain to the financial sector, well that’s where the money was. Now there is a financial dust bowl, and no one knows where to go.
Where will the money be in ten years, in twenty? What is going to be the next big frontier. Let’s get off our collective you know whats and start moving there- today!
And speak from your gut a little more, we need some of that too, ya know.
-pk
— pkObama’s Special Olympics comment unveiled a shocking, ugly, out-of-touch side of him. It was a lot worse than his disgusting “lipstick on a pig” comment during the campaign.
— Augustine 25Hey guys. This administration has been in office scarcely eight weeks. Isn’t it a bit early for the equivalent of obituaries, in the form of lengthy jaw-bowners picturing disaster, communications collapse and failure at every turn? C’mon.
— Frank VivianoObama-no-metrics:
- Weak poker players should be given extra money before play commences
- Weaker teams in NFL, NBA, MLB etc get free points to begin with.
- All the “Special Olympic” people (who Mr. President dislikes somehow) would have to run only half the course of the race.
Enough Already…this is not the change we hoped for. Ron Paul- Where are you?
— An Angry VoiceExcellent essay. But can you run a spell- and grammar-check before publishing something of this length?
— Glenn KelmanAs Robert Reich said, “The president cannot afford to lose the public’s confidence that his administration is a careful steward of the public’s money.”
That confidence is in doubt over the AIG bonuses. The Senate has put forward a sham bill that cannot be reconciled with the House bonus tax. Obama is giving cover to this by hinting he’s scared of bankers’ tantrums.
Well, one of the threats is very real and one of them is a bunch of hooey. Obama has until next week to figure out which is which, and nothing less than his presidency is on line.
— B. MullYou Beltway bozos are wonderful! This sort of thing registers not at all in the country. Oooh my! Gaffes!! How perfectly awful!!!
And some of the people you have chosen to quote are suspect, to say the least. Patterico, for example, is a neanderthal Republican who patters on enveloped with right-wing blinders.
— larryThe special Olympics joke showed that Obama would, had he have been white, would have made black jokes.
It wasnt just nasty and not PC but it showed a side of Obama which is completely counter to everything he purports to stand for. It made me think he is a opportunist sham.
Dont blame me. I removed my Obama sticker from my car way back after his FISA vote.
— scientellaThis entire article is nonsense. He doesn’t begin to know what he is talking about; he quote Michelle Malkin.
— Robert FOops. I made a mistake on my earlier comment:
It should read:
he *quotes* Michelle Malkin.
— Robert FObama is a great guy and his coolness is an asset. However, there is no sign that he comprehends two critical political and social realities.
First, there are few things that will drive complacent Americans to real activism, but a shared sense of profound injustice is one of them. The material scale of the injustice is not relevant — the sense that the “system” cannot deliver justice as needed offends an inviolable clause in the social contract. Failure to “prosecute” injustice seriously corrupts whatever faith in the system has been grudgingly given. The loss of confidence and support which follows are not easily regained.
Second, for all its downside, anger exists sometimes quite defensible purposes. Anger sometimes insures that bad systems and bad people do not keep doing bad things. Anger makes sure that there are consequences which others must respect. Anger may be difficult to control, but it creates the will to insure that injustice is not permitted to thrive. ‘Evil thrives when good men do nothing” can also be expressed as “Evil thrives until others become angry enough to confront it.” Sometimes moving on really is the only option, but if it is invoked as a principle to avoid administering justice, then it just gets perceived as more injustice — which indeed it is.
The public mood surrounding the AIG debacle is that “letting go” and “moving on” are not going to placate the lost confidence which the injustice has precipitated. Obama really needs to do something to demonstrate a tangible righteousness — and in this case it needs to involve getting rid of Geithner and absolutely hobbling AIG — whom, I suspect, the world will not miss if it is broken up and sold off in pieces to people who will know what to do with them. A failure to punish sometimes has worse consequences than initially perceived. This would be such a time.
— DiogenesOne thing about it, if the president should fail, and I don;t think he will, there will be plenty of people who have all the answers to step up and take over.
— Tinker BunkerOne thing about it, if the president should fail, and I do not think he will, there will be plenty of people who have all the answers to step up and take over.
— Tinker BunkerThe rapidity of attacks on the new administration in light of the historic malaise is astounding. God help us.
— Estelusti“The deficits under the Obama plan would be $4.9 trillion more than the projected deficits if there were no changes in current laws and policies — what the nonpartisan budget office calls its baseline assumption.”
I am going to assume that no changes in current laws and policies means Bush tax cuts continue. Even if Obama was a spending hawk the Bush tax cuts are bad and should be eliminated, so that projection doesn’t seem too helpful.
— Jay ZThe bottom feeding media are having one hellova time. What is the difference between a man taking a bonus he was promised and the media going for the simple story the audience is capable of understanding? Both certainly are legal though immoral.
A responsible media would be working hard to explain the ramifications of letting banks go under, the difficulties of staffing a department with new stringent personnel standards, the connection between education and an improving economy and the gluttony we all practice with our transportation habits.
Instead every sentence is dissected, every unseen nuance is interpreted and reinterpreted every motive is analyzed and discussed. Grow up America.
— Gene