At Newsbusters, Kyle Drennen watches The Today Show, so you don’t have to:
During an interview with former Obama Press Secretary Robert Gibbs on Tuesday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer wondered: “How does the President get this excitement going again surrounding his re-election bid so that he can keep this office?” Throughout the segment, the headline on screen read: “Beyond Hope and Change; How Can President Regain Magic of 2008?”
Simple. He turns into John McCain. Or maybe Charles Lindbergh. As Jonah Goldberg writes today, “Obama’s new campaign theme casts his political opponents as unpatriotic:”
Before President Obama headed off to his rented 28-acre retreat in Martha’s Vineyard, he spent a few days campaigning around the Midwest in his new million-dollar, Canadian-made campaign bus, paid for at government expense. He even unveiled what many believe will be his new reelection theme: “Country first.”
According to his new stump speech, if you oppose his agenda, then you don’t care about America as much as he does.
“There is no shortage of ideas to put people to work right now. What is needed is action on the part of Congress, a willingness to put the partisan games aside and say we’re going to do what’s right for the country, not what we think is going to score some political points for the next election,” Obama explained in Cannon Falls, Minn., in an event that the White House insisted had nothing to do with campaigning.
“There is nothing that we’re facing that we can’t solve with some spirit of ‘America first,’” he added, inadvertently borrowing the slogan of 1930s isolationists and the presidential campaigns of Patrick Buchanan.
In news that will no doubt rekindle the hopes of the unemployed, the White House says Obama has an idea for how to get even more Americans working. Of course, it will depend on that “America first” spirit, which will really separate the patriotic from the petty.
And what is his big new plan for putting country first? Well, you’ll just have to wait until September to find out. For now, his policy is Martha’s Vineyard first.
“Obama, former presidential nominee John Kerry, and every other prominent Democrat of the last decade charged that Bush and, in 2008, John McCain inappropriately used patriotism as a political weapon,” Jonah concludes. “And now, Obama does openly what he charged his enemies of doing through code words. And everyone’s arguing about Rick Perry.”
But of course — as Charles Krauthammer famously said, “To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.” Why would the media argue with Obama on a topic that they’re in complete agreement with?
And they’re particularly evil, as Moe Lane quips, when that mean ol’ nasty Rick Perry’s being so insensitive to Barack Obama’s feelings, goshdarnit!
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