The Bush Budget and 9/11 – Just Exactly The Same

Well, never let it be said that Democrats can’t rachet up the hyperbole.

Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley yesterday compared President Bush’s proposed budget cuts to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, saying that Bush, like the al Qaeda hijackers who crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, has launched an assault on America’s cities.

“These cuts, ladies and gentlemen, are sad. Irresponsible. They are also dishonest,” O’Malley (D) told a packed news conference at the National Press Club, where mayors and area officials had gathered to decry Bush’s plan to slash spending on community development programs by $2 billion.

“Back on September 11, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores, two of America’s great cities. They did that because they knew that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most,” O’Malley said. “Years later, we are given a budget proposal by our commander in chief, the president of the United States. And with a budget ax, he is attacking America’s cities. He is attacking our metropolitan core.”

Yep, that’s it exactly. The President’s just like the 9/11 killers because he’s not going to give Mayor O’Malley the money he wants and is going to make him come up with it himself.

After all, it’s not like funding inner-city programs is a Governor’s job or anything.

Ah, but the fun just began. After he was criticized by everyone from Republican legislators to the Mayor of Washington DC and fellow Maryland Democrats, he backed down, kind of.

If you consider a lie backing down.

In an interview, O’Malley said he “in no way intended to equate these budget cuts, however bad, to a terrorist attack.”

Hmmm….I don’t think that’s very honest of him. Let’s all be like Warner Wolf and go to the videotape…err…news article!

“Back on September 11, terrorists attacked our metropolitan cores, two of America’s great cities. They did that because they knew that was where they could do the most damage and weaken us the most,” O’Malley said. “Years later, we are given a budget proposal by our commander in chief, the president of the United States. And with a budget ax, he is attacking America’s cities. He is attacking our metropolitan core.”

I wonder how many other things the Mayor says that he doesn’t intend?

I have a sneaky suspicion that we’re going to see these quotes again when the Mayor runs for Governor in 2006, don’t you? I, personally, hope they squash any aspirations he has for higher office once and for all. He was irresponsible and thought he could get away with making the now-stock Democratic argument of “Bush is the most evil man on the face of the Earth”. But even here in one of the bluest of blue states, it’s still well off-limits to drag 9/11 into your hysterical political hyperbole. And it’s still off-limits to lie about what you intended.

UPDATE: Michelle Malkin found this story today also and asks a question.

So I guess we can expect all those offended 9/11 groups–Peaceful Tomorrows, etc.–to issue furious condemnations of Dem gubernatorial hopeful O’Malley for so cheaply exploiting the terrorist attacks to squeeze federal funding for pet city programs, right?

Oooooooh….that’s going to leave a mark.

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Category: Oh Maryland My Maryland.