“Obama To The Next Generation: Screw You, Suckers,” Andrew Sullivan writes:
To all those under 30 who worked so hard to get this man elected, know this: he just screwed you over. He thinks you’re fools. Either the US will go into default because of Obama’s cowardice, or you will be paying far far more for far far less because this president has no courage when it counts. He let you down. On the critical issue of America’s fiscal crisis, he represents no hope and no change. Just the same old Washington politics he once promised to end.
“All of us who took Obama’s pitch as fiscally responsible were duped,” Andrew adds. (Meaning pretty much the entire staff of the Atlantic, among other vast swatches of the MSM?) Of course, it’s much easier for a con man to swindle someone who’s looking to be duped.
To be fair though, Obama held himself out a man who’s as equally conservative as John Kerry – just ask Andrew:
Andrew Sullivan in July of 2004:
Kerry may be the right man – and the conservative choice – for a difficult and perilous time.
Andrew Sullivan, [May 22nd, 2009:]
This speech, to my mind, was a conservative one by a conservative president who seeks first and foremost to use existing institutions to address the new challenges of the moment, and then seeks pragmatic compromises, always open to future checks and balances, in those places where such institutions clearly need reform and adjustment.
But then, conservatism really is whatever Andrew defines it to be at any given moment, of course.
As Andrew’s bete noire would say, how’s that Hopey-Changey stuff working out for you?
Rest easy; Andrew and the MSM will forget all of the president’s flaws and switch back to cheerleader mode as next year looms closer.
Update: Or maybe not: James Joyner notes that Andrew “has never supported the same man in consecutive elections”, and “is poised to continue his streak.”
“All of us who took Obama’s pitch as fiscally responsible were duped,” Andrew adds.
Yeah, the con game works a lot better when the mark wants to believe the con, so I’ve read.
You can’t cheat an honest man and you can’t con someone who isn’t looking for little larceny.
This budget proposal is a crass political ploy, a vile dereliction of duty, an assault on our system of government, and a slap in the face to our children and grandchildren.
There comes a time when a crisis crosses an invisible line, where politics needs to just cease, sit on the sidelines and where playing politics with the issue is beneath contempt. Obama has ignored that line and leftists in this country are stomping on it.
The economy is so fragile at the moment, the debt and deficit so enormous, the current path so unsustainable, that it is unthinkable to play politics with it. But, that is precisely the low road that this administration and their boot-licking lackeys on the left have taken.
How this budget would look any different if Frances Fox Piven had drawn it, is impossible to discern. Collapsing capitalism and destroying the free market enterprise system by overloading it with senseless debt and mindless spending no longer requires an investigation into intent. Incompetence will do just as well and crass political motivations are equally despicable.
This is a direct assault on our system of government. Run up spending to laughable levels and ten offer to “freeze” them there, is like running your credit card beyond its max and offering to not spend more than OVER that amount each month. It’s rank irresponsibility.
The only difference is…Obama is running up his credit card on YOUR income…not his.
There IS a line across which crass political maneuvering should take a back seat to saving the country from ruin. Leftists don’t give a damn about that line because they don’t give a damn about the country. There is no other conclusion that can be fairly reached.
We will be killed off as a nation by pensions and entitlements. The new PE measure for the business of government has nothing to do with earnings, it has to do with giveaways.
We are being suckered into believing that this is merely bad economics. It’s not. It’s effective revolution.
GREAT post.
Few people know that little lenin lived on credit in Chicago in the 90′a. He took several cash-out re-financed mortgages on his townhome; the most dangerous kind of refinancing. The way that works is that you refinance for more than the value of your remaining mortgage because you claim the value of the property has increased. It’s like a cash machine as long as property values are increasing; unless you are the one stuck with no chair to sit on when the music stops. No doubt he would have filed for bankruptcy if he hadn’t hit the jackpot by tapping into the progressive money machine when it turned out his handlers discovered that he had become a consumate liar, the most critical progressive life skill (challenged only by amorality and the grifter gene. Obama has the trifecta.)
We’ll know Andrew’s really turned on Obama if he starts claiming Trig is Michelle’s baby.
As for the budget it’s hard to say if this is more of an act of incredible fecklessness or one of naked cynicism. Either it’s the ultimate example of Obama trying to kick the can down the road and hoping someone else will solve his problem for him and then allow Barack to claim all the credit — pretty much The Obama Story for the past 25 years — or he’s decided the deficit is simply another issue to demogauge, and he’d rather put out a patently irresponsible budget to force the Republicans to go first with their proposals for cuts, and then use other Democrats and the big media to do the usual “Republicans want to starve old people, herd minorities into concentration camps and eat children” routine.