Obama: You’re All A Bunch of Hypocrites! Now Let Me Get Back to My Board Game.
Friday, President Obama sat down with Politico and had a little chat. By now, the President has had so many chats with various reporters, television stations, members of Congress, and large invisible rabbits that a new one really isn’t news. You can almost write the script. First, he’ll tell us about concerned he is. Next, he’ll points out that none of the problems we’re having are actually his fault. Then, he’ll lob a few accusations as Republicans before finishing with a his customary explanation that the only way out of the mess du jour primarily involves giving him more power and a lot more money.
However, this interview was a little bit different. In this one, the President didn’t attack just Republicans. He also accused a few hundred thousand ordinary Americans of being a bunch of lousy hypocrites.
The president also implied that anti-big government types such as tea party activists were being hypocritical on the issue.
“Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said. “Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.”
I sincerely hope the President isn’t this ignorant about the difference between “do something” and “do your job”. This is a direct shot at the Tea Party movement, which has spent the better part of a year asking the President to do his job and only his job. Obamacare isn’t leadership; it’s a pre-failed waste of trillions of dollars and an unprecedented power grab. The Stimulus Bill was never going to solve the problem of an economy in recession, but it was almost perfectly designed to choke the private sector while at the same time shoving over a trillion dollars into an expanding government and the pockets of Democratic interest groups. The auto bailout punished private investors while handing control of two major companies to the Democratically-aligned labor unions.
The Tea Party movement wants the President to do his job as Commander-in-Chief to keep the nation secure. Instead, his Department of Homeland Security has outsourced its job to blind luck and random airline passengers while it conducts an in-depth investigations of groups like the Tea Party movement. They want the President to be an executive. Instead, he’s sitting around a table with the head of the Coast Guard and the Energy Secretary figuring out how to get an oil boom from Maine to Louisiana.
“What the public wants to see is us solving this problem. And that may not make for good TV. Me sitting in a meeting with [Energy] Secretary [Steven] Chu and [Gulf national incident commander] Thad Allen and looking over maps and figuring out how boom gets someplace, that’s not something that is high theater. But ultimately that’s going to make the biggest difference in terms of whether or not the Gulf recovers.”
Other Posts of Interest:
- President Obama Suddenly Discovers A Taste for Executive Power
- Our Panicmonger-in-Chief
- How is the Obama Administration like a Steel Pipe?
Category: President Barack Obama, Progressives
Yo Jimbo! What, exactly, should he do?
1) Sit down with some actual oil spill experts and his incident commander. Find out what they need to keep more oil off the shore and get it for them.
2) Stop distracting BP from their job with his overcompensating displays of he-man toughness.
3) Stop treating Thad Allen like an "advocate" and start treating him like a military commander with a chain of command he can use to good effect.
4) Call someone with executive experience and find out what an executive should do.
Passing the Healthcare Reform that presidents have been trying to achieve since FDR isn't leadership? What a pity that the last guy in his position didn't have to meet such astronomical standards.
Obama's point about all the "patriots" who spent last summer demanding that government get out of their Medicare was dead-on. Their small-government principles evaporate like fairy-dust when there's enough money in the game … or whenever a major problem comes up. Things like the NEA or ACORN (one given a pittance, the other now fully defunded) are evil dens of corruption & waste, but a 3% INCREASE in an already obese Pentagon budget magically morphs into "cutting defense & threatening America's security." Also a bit odd how so many "patriots" are now defending a foreign company that has devastated a magnificent natural habitat that's also a cornerstone of their national economy, while continuing to reflexively oppose everything their own country's leader says or does.
This situation is unique: drilling this deep was literally nonexistant just a few years ago. Almost everything useful that can be done is being done already, whether you like it or not – the real issue is whether a relief-well can be opened & how soon, not what the POTUS does. The relief-well is BP's responsibility. Cleanup of a catastrophe of this scale is problematic at best, & won't become any easier with the onset of hurricane season … & most of the damage to the coastal fisheries was likely already done before the first oil ever hit the shoreline.
The oil companies have neglected both safety & cleanup reforms for decades – Exxon probably spent as much on fighting Valdez lawsuits in Alaska as it has since on improving its emergency planning, & they're still miles ahead of BP. BP's safety record is an obscenity – as is the total merger of oil companies with the agencies tasked with policing them that took place after 2000.
Loving the way that blowout-preventer performed? Thank Cheney – he's the one who rewrote the regs to lower performance standards so he could give all his oil-tycoon pals cheaper dividends. For some mystrious reason, he stopped being such a constant Chatty-Cathy on the talk-shows all of a sudden … I wonder why?
Any spin that makes Obama the villain here is in effect, by taking heat off of BP, complicit with its criminal destruction of some of the most beautiful & valuable coastal habitat in America, & deserves only loathing.
Passing it over the will of the majority of the American people is not leadership. Also, he didn't pass it. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid passed it. The President didn't even know what was in the bill he signed.
Jinnie sez:
Which he has been doing, literally from day one. Of course the baggers are yelling at him for doing so.
Yeah, 'cause they have to pull the guys off the boats and beaches and turn off the ROVs just so a couple of execs can meet with him.
Uhm Jimmie, maybe you should look up That Allen's job description before making such silly comments. He actually ISN'T a military commander, but heads the Unified Command…which BTW has an extremely well-defined "chain of command."
Great idea. Maybe he should follow "heckuva job Brownie" George's example of executive leadership.
My name's Jimmie. With two "m"s. Get that right and I'll deal with the other mistakes in your comment.
Sadly, No! has a response.
I'm sure he does. He's largely responsible for the lefty trolls who show up here.
Thank you for replying.
Obama signed the bill into law – otherwise he could've vetoed it. So feel free to change "passing" into "signing" – & try to address the issue itself instead of quibbling over terminology. Or do you seriously advocate bringing pre-existing conditions & recission back?
That "disaster" of a bill will very likely save many thousands of American lives every year – not to mention slowing down a tidal-wave of medical bankruptcies while freeing up many billions to resuscitate a moribund economy – & even a conservative think-tank like the Rand Corporation now says it's just about the best response to America's dysfunctional HC system that could've been made at the present time.
"Passing it over the will of the majority of the American people isn't leadership."
Au contraire. Going against the majority when the majority is wrong is exactly what leadership is – & your response conveniently skips over the fact that much (if not most) of the opposition was due to the bill's lack of a public option. Obama knew that conservative Democrats would help the GOP to kill any reform that included one, so he sacrificed the best possible response to get one that would survive the US Senate – & that, too, is real leadership.
As for Obama not knowing what was in the bill: yes, his profound ignorance of his own party's policies was surely on display for all to see when he was the guest of the GOP at their Retreat some months back – everyone remembers how thoroughly he was humiliated in that exchange by great thinkers like John Boehner & Eric Cantor … & I'm sure they can't wait to invite him back so they can give him yet another thrashing.
You say the health care bill will do certain things. Experience and economics say the bill will do quite different things. I've written copiously on the subject on my blog and don't feel obliged to rehash weeks of argument today.
So, I'll move on. Let's say I accept your definition of leadership. Would you then say that George W. Bush was a great leader who successfully prosecuted a war that, at times, did not carry the will of the majority of America? Would you say that his attempt to reform Social Security, a reform that must be done and soon, was an example of great leadership though it was cast in terms that made it unpopular?
Lastly, you and I must have seen different health care retreats. The President was tossing out untrue platitudes like the "if you like your health care, you can keep your health care" and folks who were there who actually have experience in the medical field were embarrassing him because he didn't know what was actually in the bill. Hey, not even Nancy Pelosi knew what was in the bill. She admitted that much not very long ago.
Hey, if you don't like it, don't comment here.
Jimmie with Two "M"s sez:
Links please.
Links please.
Do your own research. You're here on my dime.
A little hint on the second one. Look for something about passing the bill so we can know what's in it.
"The President didn’t even know what was in the bill he signed."
Ah. You're one of *those* conservatives. You know, the omniscient type, privy to the innermost thoughts and desires of people, with a full and total knowledge of their motivations. It must be great fun to able to make such blithe assertions, secure in the knowledge that you will never have to prove them.
No, I'm one of those conservatives who listenes to what someone says and realizes they're talking out of their hat.
Keep guvermint out of our lives, leebrulls!!
No guvermint regulashins on oil cumpinees cuz they are innovative enough to solve their own problems!
How's that free market "let them deal with their own problems" thing working out for ya, sparky?
Strawman. Actually two strawmen.
1) Neither I nor any conservative is saying that oil companies shuld be entirely unregulated.
2) The system we have now is not "free market". Pick up any Code of Federal Regulations to see just how heavily government is involved in regulating every industry.
Can you do better? Hint: try less snark and more thinking. I know you don't get much of that at "Sadly No!" but around here, we do at least try.
around here, we do at least try.
We? You mean you and your imaginary friends? From the looks of it, it is just you and a few trolls who swing by to point and laugh from time to time.
Like so many other drive-by commenters, you haven't take any time to be familiar with my blog. If you had, you'd know I"m not the only one who writes here.
I don't ask for much, but I do ask that you show me enough courtesy to do a small amount of research before you make assumptions about me or my blog. That's just good manners.
Jimmie with a Capital "J" sez:
Not surprising you expect other people to do your homework for you.
Here's a transcript of Obama's meeting with the GOP leadership at the retreat. Please show us exactly where "folks who were there who actually have experience in the medical field were embarrassing him because he didn't know what was actually in the bill."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/29/transcri…
Be specific.
Well I actually did look and couldn't find anyplace where Nancy Pelosi "admitted she didn't know what was in the bill." Which is why I asked you for a link.
I did find this, though:
Different? Not at all? Pass the bill so you can find out what's in it? That "you" is everyone, unless of course you hold that Pelosi believes everyone but her is a drooling idiot incapable of deciphering the deep mysteries of Obamacare. Well, okay. On second thought, you may be right. It's entirely possible that Pelosi had an idea what was int he bill but thought the rest of us (including everyone who was stumping for the bill) were incredibly stupid. That does fit the standard progressive theory that the populace need to be managed by the experts.
As for expecting other people do to my homework, you couldn't be more wrong. If you make an assertion, you are responsible for backing it up. That's standard practice in a debate. I've already done my homework and put the results into thousands of blog posts here. Your job is to be halfway familiar with what I've said and found.
Yes, if you make an assertion, you are responsible for backing it up. You made two very specific assertions and STILL have not backed up either one.
I gave you the transcript of Obama's meeting with the GOP at their retreat, and asked you to show us exactly where "folks who were there who actually have experience in the medical field were embarrassing him because he didn't know what was actually in the bill." Your response? Silence.
When presented with the correct Pelosi quote, you change the subject. You sort of admit in the middle of your bloviating that it was "entirely possible that Pelosi had an idea what was in the bill" – contrary to your claim – and immediately pivot to grab the new straw man.
Nice job on the "homework," buddy.
On Pelosi, I corrected myself, though you may not have liked the tone of my correction. I admitted she could have known what was in the bill (though, in reality, I doubt it since she didn't have time to read it before she voted on it) . Isn't that what you wanted, or do you intend to criticize me if I correct myself or not?
Would it be better for you if I just wrote what you wanted me to write? I'm not averse to that, assuming you can pay for it.
It it makes you feel better, I'll offer you another apology. I mistook the reater to which Jim was referring. I thought he meant the specific meeting on health care when what he really meant was the joint meeting that dealt mostly with the stimulus bill and a little with health care. In that meeting (to which yuo provided the transcript), the President refused to discuss Obamacare and instead showed ignorance about the Republican health care bills that has been presented. He said on several occasions that he read them, but refused to believe there were things in there that Tom Coburn (an author) specifically said were there. Pence wasn't there. I apologize for getting the wrong meeting.
It wasn't just the tone of your Pelosi "correction" that I objected to, it was the fact that as half-hearted as it was, it was hidden in the midst of so much irrelevant bloviating, followed by an immediate pivot to another strawman.
I appreciate that you admit you were referring to a different meeting between Obama and GOP congressmembers. Let's discuss some of the claims you make about the meeting whose transcript I linked to:
Really? Please show a single instance in that meeting where he "refused" to discuss his health care reform proposal.
Again, please show exactly where he showed that ignorance. I see one place where Paul Ryan corrected him when he mentioned Ryan's Medicare proposal: Medicare levels would stay the same for recipients 55 and over. (Obama was partly correct in that there would be "vouchers of some sort" for Medicare recipients under age 55.) And by the way, that was not in a Republican health care bill, but part of Ryan's proposed "Roadmap for America" proposals for budget reform.
Exactly what did he "refuse to believe"? Be specific.
Oh yes, Coburn wasn't there (he's a Senator, y'know). Pence was.
Ah, so you didn't like the tone or content of the apology? Oh well. Just treat me like you'd treat any Democratic member of Congress and we'll be fine. Let me point out as well the irony of you criticizing me for using a strawman.
Also, a quote for you.
Also we're way off topic. Let's get back there soon, okay? Meter's running.
First of all, your Pelosi "correction" wasn't an apology at all. Second, criticizing the way it was couched is not a strawman. I'd say "good try," but really, it wasn't.
As to your quote, please show exactly where it answers a single one of my questions:
1. Please show a single instance where he "refused" to discuss his OWN health care reform proposal.
2. Please show exactly where he demonstrated ignorance about the Republican health care bills that had been presented.
3. What exactly did he "refuse to believe" about the GOP health care bills? Tom Price's (not Coburn) assertion? If that's what you mean, how does disagreeing with the assertion disprove his claim that he had read the bill, as you claimed?
Look, obviously you came here spoiling for a fight. I gave you as much of one as I care to give. If you really believe that the President knew what was in his plan, I can't disabuse you of that notion. If you believe he knows more about health care then guys who actually deliver it, I can't stop you. If you believe Nancy Pelosi had a handle on all the elements of a 2000+ page bill that was on the floor just a couple few days. There is plenty of evidence to the contrary (i.e. the "if you like your health care line"). I'm moving on. Declare victory at your whim.
Jimmie with Two "I"s sez:
Ray Bolger is alive and well.
And in the end, the Lion won, didn't he?
Yeah, he got a pretend medal. Go for it.
He got a great deal more than that. Ah, such a lack of imagination.
Hey, if "liquid courage" is what it takes, who am I to gainsay. Keep dancin' with the ol' strawman.
I barely drink. Again, something you'd know if you read my blog.
You're the one who mentioned the Lion "winning." Ah, such a lack of imagination.
Oh wait, I get it. You're actually saying the Lion let the straw man win all his battles for him. Okaaay!
Right. Because that's exactly what happened, here and in the movie/book.
Really, that's what you're claiming? Okaaay.
the gov and police throw people in jail for breaking laws yet they break them twice as much and commit way worse crimes…our gov is a joke just like the police force and this whole thing is gonna crash someday and I hope I am hear to see it as I want to give some payback to these MF's
No, it won't crash. No, police don't commit twice as many crimes. No, there won't be payback.