Aftermath: Politico Goes to Work on the Obama Rehab Project
If PolitiFact is sincere in sniffing out the 2010 “Lie of the Year,” its editors would do well to check out the Politico today. Less than 24 hours after Congress, which is still in the control of the Democrats, passed the Bush tax cuts, Politico wipes its sleepy eyes and declares that:
Barack Obama makes the sale
Seriously, that’s their big headline. The story that accompanies it is every bit as accurate.
Democrats are about to surrender the House. Republicans are pinching themselves for getting a tasty tax deal with an estate-tax cherry on top. And liberals say President Barack Obama is the biggest sell-out since Bob Dylan went electric.
AdvertisementYet for all that drama, President Barack Obama closed the most impressive sales job of his presidency a few minutes before the clock struck midnight on Thursday –winning House approval of a broadly popular tax-cut and unemployment extension opposed by the extremes of both parties.
Whose policy just won in Washington? Let’s look back to February 2009. President Obama and the Democrats were riding high. And the Bush tax cuts were on the chopping block, thanks to the President’s own tax raising budget.
And who actually did the best sales job on this policy? It wasn’t Barack Obama. Politico apparently forgot what happened just last Friday.
As a sort of coup de grace, Obama last Friday escorted former President Bill Clinton into the White House briefing room, where the former president praised the deal as the best compromise possible during a memorable 30-minute exchange with reporters.
Abdicating his job is now a “coup de grace,” and bugging out now qualifies as “escorting” the former President. The Taiwanese animation of Obama’s “coup de grace” was more accurate. And let’s not forget, Obama spent two press conferences prior to the Fail arguing that the tax cut deal wasn’t even very good. Some sales job.
The entity most responsible for the “sale” of the Bush tax cuts was the American people, who saw the prospect of taxes rising sharply in January with all due horror and made sure that their representation in Washington heard loud and clear what to do about it. The entity most responsible for getting us to where we were, facing that across the board tax hike, was the Democratic Party of the Bush era, which forced the tax cuts’ impermanence in the first place. Barack Obama himself campaigned against the Bush tax cuts while his party routinely called them “irresponsible” and even blamed them for triggering the 2008 economic meltdown (ignoring their own role, and that of Fannie-Freddie, along the way).
“winning House approval of a broadly popular tax-cut”
In what universe was this a tax cut!?! We’ve got to stop referring to the Bush Tax Cuts. We weren’t advocating extending a Tax Cut. That implies that at some point the rates should go back up. We were demanding the extension of the current tax RATES. As these have been the rates for a decade.
We should be demanding the current tax rates be made permanent. And then we need to advocate for a spending cap tied directly to GDP.
Patrick
This is all baloney. Americans have enemies in the US, and these enemies are dedicated to destroying the American society, culture, religion, and economy. Federal officials take an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The Left is the domestic enemy of the Constitution, and everything else distinctly American. Enemies are either defeated, or you lose — sorry, it’s strictly either-or. BTW, not-winning is losing. I believe somebody once noted that there is no substitute for victory, although people who need to be told that they need to fight when attacked don’t look like potential victors to me.
“winning House approval of a broadly popular tax-cut”
The contradiction is baked right in!
I hope there is no rehabilitation of Obama possible. With PJM Fox News and talk radio it is no longer possible to keep people in the dark. Also with online posting of laws budgets and databases we can see what is really going on, not to mention all people with camera and video phones.
My HTC Incredible with an 8 megapixel camera can record a video and almost instantly put it on You Tube although I have yet to use that feature!
Politico is getting help from an unlikely corner–Charles Krauthammer. Two pro-Obama columns in consecutive weeks. Enough already.
The big problem with Politico is that its editor gets a massive boner every time he thinks of Barrack Obama. I mean, he’ll start acting like a serious journalist, maybe put out an actual story now and then, and then suddenly Barry pops into his mind and SHWING.
Obama hasn’t changed anything other than his political tactics. There is still the same crew he hired to transition to redistribution, but they cannot continue below the radar unless he is re-elected. He will say and do anything to keep them enabled.
Saul Alinsky. Rules for Radicals. Obama taught it and was praised by Alinsky’s son for being such a true follower. Read it again. You won’t get if from Politico.
When the new Congress is sworn in the new presumably conservative House members will effectively control the Republican caucus and thus the House! How? There is no other plausible voting coalition to produce a majority to pass any legislation. Republican squishes plus Blue Dog dems? Not enough votes.
Ergo the Obama agenda is dead for at least 2 years and there are very real prospects for actual conservative reforms but the House needs to act quickly to avoid the outbreak of dem demogoguery that will surely occur in 2012.
#6 comment by Cowboy said it all. Obama is not smelling the roses, the man is only TRYING TO BE APPEALING FOR REELECTION. The same applies to all politicians.
The aforementioned could care less about you and me. It’s all about the extra 2, 4 or 6 years and doing nothing but something for their own ambition (hat tip RHCP).
Thomas Sowell echoes the very same, albeit in in more precise manner in his, ‘Dismantling America’.
It’s entirely possible that Barack, with the help of the MSM, will again lull the voters into complacency. It’s just as possible that the attack-dog Dems in Congress will, again with MSM help, successfully demonize the congressional Republicans.
It’s frightening to imagine what could happen if Barack is re-elected and the Republicans lose any power in the House and/or Senate. And the same type of voters who re-elected Harry Reid and Barney Frank are very capable of keeping the Senate in Dem hands in ’12 or even returning the House to Dem control.
I’ve been disappointed by the elected Republicans so many times that I find I can’t relax and assume they won’t blow it in the next 2 years. Indiana’s own RINO, Sen. Lugar, seems determined to run again in ’12 — ugh — and Barack has loaded the government bureaucracy with like-minded anti-American-success cronies, who may prove difficult to weed out. Scary times.
UNTIL you can sit Barry down in a church,and let a REAL minister that loves people,lecture him for another twenty years.YOU WILL NOT WIN. Barry will NOT change his views.He might say he does but you cannot beat the Wright method of indoctrination.
He will fool a lot of conservatives BUT he will not change his REAL VIEW.
Sorry America, two more years of lies.
If only “FOX” put out a newspaper in NY. They could outsell the times in a year.I believe it would be one way to counteract the MSM on its own turf.