I guess we should first give a hand to Major Garrett of CBS for leading his network into another accidental venture of actual journalism earlier this year. As the President conducted a question and non-answer session with members of the Press, back in January, Major asked the President about his “unprecedented” request that the upcoming debt limit increase be non-negotiable.
The President’s non-answer to Major was typical, rambling, and evasive. His remarks have more recently been echoed by the Treasury Secretary on financial talk shows, and the Press Secretary on routine occasion. But, for the sake of column inches, it’s worth mercilessly tearing his non-answer apart (again):
The President’s request that the debt limit be increased without compromise or negotiation actually is unprecedented. It is also, however, the exact sort of stubbornness the White House accuses the GOP of employing every time a manufactured crises rears its ugly head. “What’s Different,” according to the President, is that “we’ve never seen a situation, like we did last year, in which certain, uh, groups in Congress took such an absolutist position.”
Really? Absolutist? Asking for a deficit reduction plan, like congress got in the Bush, Clinton, and Reagan Administrations, is absolutist? Strange choice of words. . . But he went on:
“And, the – the – uh – the fact of the matter is that we have never seen the debt ceiling used in this fashion, where the notion was ‘you know, we might default, unless we get 100 percent of what we want.’”
Now. . . Wrap your brain around this: There is a man (who voted against raising the debt ceiling when his predecessor was in office) telling a room full of journalists that the problem is a group of people who refuse to negotiate; and because of those uncompromising fools, he has decided not to negotiate. Now wrap your brain around this: No-one laughed out loud. Not one reporter found the hypocrisy uncontrollably laughable. In fact, many of them feverishly reported the gist of the comment: The GOP is forcing Obama to demand a unilateral increase in the debt.
Oh, and what happens if he fails to negotiate? Well. . . Default, I guess.
Simply put, the President is willing to play chicken with the Nation’s credit rating to pressure the rubber-spine Republicans into acquiescing to his agenda. And, while he refuses to compromise - breaking tradition from past Presidents – to accomplish a simple debt limit increase, he will blame his stubbornness on the imagined stubbornness of those “crazy” Republicans.
This Administration has routinely accused the opposition party of legislative stagnation – despite the fact that they have repeatedly proven an inability to compromise on any of their sacred issues. It is, however, unfair to say that this tactic has been used exclusively by our Chicago-Politician-in-Chief. It is a tactic of leftists the world over.
Religious opposition to gay marriage is bigotry, while “open minded” ridicule of religious principles is “though-provoking”. Strong bi-partisan opposition to Obamacare is “tea-party-Astroturf”, while paid protestors from the SEIU are “grassroots activists”. Mitt Romney’s earned wealth puts him “out-of-touch” with average Americans, while President Obama enjoys a much needed $40 million vacation. (In fact, if we continued with this paragraph we’d be writing a novel on Democrat inspired “newspeak”.)
The real ostentatious part of the President’s non-answer was the media’s predictable censorship of his hypocrisy. Not only was Major the only reporter to bring up the President’s departure from traditional debt ceiling negotiations, but he’s most likely one of only a handful in that room that felt Obama’s response left something to be desired.
The President went on for another excruciating three minutes about the impracticality of spending cuts in deficit reduction plans, the need for increased government “investment” (ahem*spending*ahem), and a unilateral increase in the nation’s credit limit.
Major never got an honest answer to his question, the American people never got an honest report on the President’s message, and the Republican Party will likely never get an honest compromise on the debt ceiling. Obama’s stubbornness, according to his apologists in the media and DC, is “justified” because of a few “radical” Republican congressman representing their districts. And Obama will continue to blame his inflexible position on the Republican’s demand for compromise.
And the media will propagandistically oblige his narrative.
PS: Do you feel like torturing yourself? Go ahead and watch: