Friday, August 12, 2011

The Whiner-in-Chief

How did America elect such a crybaby?
President Barack Obama sought to reassert economic leadership on Thursday by pledging to deliver new ideas every week to create jobs, and he slammed Congress for "bickering" that hurts economic recovery.
In a passionate speech to auto industry workers aimed at deflecting public anger over policy gridlock in Washington, Obama said the refusal to put country ahead of party "has got to stop."

"I'll be laying out more proposals in the days ahead," Obama, a Democrat, said. The problem was not a lack of answers to the pressing issue of economic growth and hiring, rather it was people "playing political games," he said.
This is the infantile foot-stomping of a guy who has never had to work hard for anything, who has never held a position of responsibility, never had to do much in the Senate except vote “present” and spent the first two years of his Presidency with a filibuster-proof Congress that rubberstamped every useless and unpopular piece of legislation he wanted.

Then, in 2010, the voters said “enough” and sent a landslide of Republicans to Washington, state houses and governor mansions. In response to this “shellacking” does Obama recognize the shift in the national mood? No, he wants it his way and he wants it now. Why can’t those poopyheads be reasonable?
"Reasonableness," you'll remember, is shoving a wholly partisan, Byzantine restructuring of the health care system through Congress in the midst of an economic downturn. But chipping a few billion off a $3.7 trillion budget in exchange for raising the debt ceiling is an act of irrationality that has, apparently, sucked the very soul from the American project.
As usual, Charles Krauthammer explains that what Obama calls “unreasonableness” is what the rest of us call “democracy.”
Of all the endlessly repeated conventional wisdom in today’s Washington, the most lazy, stupid, and ubiquitous is that our politics is broken. On the contrary. Our political system is working well (I make no such claims for our economy), indeed, precisely as designed — profound changes in popular will translated into law that alters the nation’s political direction.
The process has been messy, loud, disputatious, and often rancorous. So what? In the end, the system works.
Obama’s unpresidential outbursts evolve from his hardwired sense of entitlement. Nothing is ever his fault and those who oppose his policies, well, they’re unpatriotic:
"There are some folks in Congress who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win," Obama told an audience at a battery facility in Michigan.
What a tool. November 2012 can't come soon enough.

10 comments:

Auntie_Maim said...

You know, I have to agree with Krauthammer. I will grant you,I'm in my mid-forties and during my lifetime hadn't seen such behavior from Capitol Hill. It really isn't anything new, though; hey, in 1852 two congressmen opened fire on each other during a session! Can you possibly imagine what it would be like if such a thing happened today?

All that happened this week is that PrezBo got outmaneuvered by Boehner et cie. Badly, too; the debt bill that ended up getting passed was utimately what Boehner and the House were asking for in the first place. And congratulations to the Speaker for it! He created his own "hug the trunk" moment and his tenacity is to be commended.

another Eric Lindholm said...

"Nothing is ever his fault and those who oppose his policies, well, they’re unpatriotic."

Gee, I can't imagine where Obama might have learned that ploy. How weird that it bothers Republicans only when a Democrat pulls the stunt. It's embarrassing from either side, really, but how about dropping the hypocrisy and calling out Bush/Cheney or every Fox News nitwit when they utter the identical words?

Anonymous said...

No, no, AEL, you're not getting the distinction. See, criticizing the President in 2001-2008 was vile because it was During a Time of War and Gave Comfort to the Enemy. Whereas with President Obama... uh...

Eric said...

Well, I'll tell you what: if you guys can give me an example of Dubya questioning a Democrats' patriotism, I'll apologize.

Not just general criticism and not some White House aide: the actual Commander-in-chief saying that those who disagree with him are putting "politics ahead of country."

Anonymous said...

George W. Bush on opponent John Kerry's vote against an $87 billion war spending measure:
”Yesterday, he said that his vote against funding for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan was complicated. No, there’s nothing complicated about supporting our troops."

Bush on his critics' alleged worry that their lack of patriotism will be pointed out:
"I think people attack me because they are fearful that I will then say that you're not equally as patriotic if you're not a religious person. I've never said that. I've never acted like that. I think that's just the way it is."

Bush saying that those who disagree with him are putting politics ahead of country:
""Unfortunately, some senators -- not all senators, but some senators -- believe it is best to try to micromanage the process, believe the best way to secure the homeland is to have a thick book of regulations which will hamstring this administration and future administrations from dealing with an enemy that could care less about thick books of regulations... And I'm not going to stand for it."

Bush impugns Democrats' loyalty for the military:
"The stakes in the global war on terror are too high and the national interest is too important for politicians to throw out false charges. These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough."

Bush describing war planning as it pertained to the partisan politics of the 2004 election:
"We will complete the mission and I will make my judgments as to the troop levels necessary to achieve victory, not based upon political polls or focus groups. Make no mistake about it, there is a group in the opposition party who are willing to retreat before the mission is done. They are willing to wave the white flag of surrender, and if they succeed the United States will be worse off, and the world will be worse off."

And Dick Cheney? If he doesn't count as "some White House aide," we could do this all day.

Eric said...

Here you're conflating military policy and patriotism. Only the second quote seems to raise the patriotism question directly but I can't be sure what Bush means by "that's just the way it is." I could be Bush's version of "live and let live."

I'm waiting for the media to jump on Obama's statement that Republicans love politics more than they love their country. Ah, who am I kidding.

IOKIYAR said...

Golly gumdrops, and here it looked for all the world as if it was Bush conflating military policy with patriotism with those remarks. But it turns out it was me!

How could I possibly have read Bush's principled accusations about not "supporting our troops," or "wave the white flag of surrender," or "throw out false charges," or "not based on political polls or focus groups," and confused them with Obama's low-down accusation of his opponents' partisan priorities? In the future, I shall strive to see the unmistakable difference.

George W. Bush, discussing a bill made necessary because the funding was then off-budget:
"For months, Congress has delayed action on supplemental war funding because some in Congress want to make a political statement about the war."

Hmm. Bush even used the dreaded "some" word!

Eric said...

Good, I'm glad you've seen the error of your ways.

Anonymous said...

Here you're conflating military policy and patriotism.
I'm waiting for the media to jump on Obama's statement that Republicans love politics more than they love their country.


Isn't "they'll let the worst people in the world kill our troops, or you, for political gain" a much WORSE slur on somebody's patriotism than "they'll take and waste a whole lot of your money for political gain"?

Tyranny of silence said...

Obama's exact quote was "The only thing preventing these bills from being passed is the refusal of some in Congress to put country ahead of party.”

As has been noted, the water-carrying, Obama-worshiping media has totally, and predictably ignored his accusation (*).

(* "Media" does not include CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, Reuters, AP, McClatchy, USA Today, the Washington Post, the LA Times, the Chicago Tribune, the NY Times, the NY Daily News, the Boston Globe, Forbes, Politico, Daily Kos, National Journal, or the White House Twitter feed.)

It's disgusting that Obama can get away with sneaking insidious hate speech like this under the radar, especially when polls show that only three-fourths of Americans agree with it.