I don't know who should be more embarrassed--Obama or the media.
Last night's press conference was like listening to your kid's piano recital. The first wrong note produces a twinge. On the second one you drop your head. On the third the blood rises to your head. On the fourth, you want to grab the kid and run out of the room.
It used to be that what was bad for the country was good for Democrats. Now it appears that what bad for the country is good for the President. Obama has been relentlessly talking down the economy like someone selling gold on late night television. I guess it makes some sort of sense since you can't really have a Messiah without a backdrop of imminent doom.
This was not a Presidential press conference, it was candidate Obama's townhall meeting. He flat out lied about the opposition to the bill, contradicted himself on several occasions, gave vague and meaningless answers and most astonishingly, actually argued that since Bush doubled the public debt, he should be able to as well. You know you're hopeless when you make George W. Bush look like champion press conference performer.
In a nationally television press conference, Obama called on Huffington Post, who predictably asked when Bush administration officials would be incarcerated, and Helen Thomas--a columnist. Why didn't he just invite his mother-in-law to ask him a few questions? This might in fact end up biting Mr. Obama in the butt. Ana Marie Cox twittered that there was "grumbling in the press room". Apparently no one has considered that the mainstream's media's leverage for respectful treatment in the White House press room is the tone of their coverage. These guys are prima donnas, and I would expect that payback will be a bitch. Aside from Cox (who is working for AAR? Are they still around?). Liberal talk show host Ed Schultz had a seat besides Helen Thomas. Can you imagine Bush inviting Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity to a press conference like this?
Obama's extreme deference to the Mullahs in Iran is sickening. Consider his answer in light of the hundreds of dead Americans and thousands of dead Iraqis and the fact that these millennialist nuts will imminently have a nuclear weapon.
I said during the campaign that Iran is a country that has extraordinary people, extraordinary history and traditions, but that its actions over many years now have been unhelpful when it comes to promoting peace and prosperity both in the region and around the world, that their attacks -- or their -- their financing of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas, the bellicose language that they've used towards Israel, their development of a nuclear weapon or their pursuit of a nuclear weapon, that all those things create the possibility of destabilizing the region and are not only contrary to our interests, but I think are contrary to the interests of international peace.
Unhelpful? Possibly destabilizing the region? Unbelievable. What a weasel.
There is also the rather typical fun with numbers we become accustomed to from Obama and the Democrats. As a sign of the embattled nature of the bill, Obama has upped the ante on "jobs saved"--from 3 million to 4 million. Why not? There are no metrics to determine what constitutes a saved job, so Obama can say 50 million jobs and he'd be covered.
A number of journalists and pundits have nevertheless declared the press conference a success, but I'm not buying it. Ask yourself the question of why the bill is in trouble if the state media will sit and rollover on command? This morning, Fox News is practically on fire with concerns and new revelations over the bill, including provisions for rationing health care for seniors--a key provision of universal healthcare every where in the world. No one seems to know who inserted the language, but suspicions are that they are the work of prominent tax-dodger Tom Daschle
Hiding health legislation in a stimulus bill is intentional. Daschle supported the Clinton administration’s health-care overhaul in 1994, and attributed its failure to debate and delay. A year ago, Daschle wrote that the next president should act quickly before critics mount an opposition. “If that means attaching a health-care plan to the federal budget, so be it,” he said. “The issue is too important to be stalled by Senate protocol.”
Let me translate: To important for the democratic process.
President Obama called it "inexcusable and irresponsible" to delay passage of the bill. Its been clear from the beginning that it irresponsible to pass the bill without a line by line review of what Democrats are trying to ram down our throats without our knowledge.
Its these daily revelations of legislative malfeasance that are the motive energy behind the push back against the bill, and that information is getting out not through the mainstream media, but from the Republican opposition, the business media, blogs, talk radio and other non-state actors. I picked up a local paper the other day which had as its headline the felicitous title, "Stimulus Could Help Utahns". That about sums up even the local media's coverage of the Stimulus bill, and yet opposition nevertheless strong and growing. I think the reason is pretty simple--this kind of spending simply goes against the economic and political culture of the country (which includes many Democrats). The state media is sounding a false note and people know it, but when they hear about stealth socialized medicine, epic pork-barrelling--its a tune they recognize.
I don't think its reasonable to expect that Obama changed a lot of minds last night, and the new revelations about the Senate bill are only going to continue to undermine it. Right now, we are in a race against time to beat Harry Reid's accelerated time table. There has been a lot of focus on the liberal Republicans in the Senate, but word has it that as many as eight Democrats are waffling at this point.
This ain't over.
