Posted on 02/06/2009 6:59:07 AM PST by reaganaut1
Barack Obama, a reputed master of the persuasive art, has settled on his central argument for the stimulus bill: I won.
That Obama is reduced to this crude appeal is a symptom of the intellectual collapse of the case for his stimulus bill, a congressional spendfest untethered from its stated goal of providing a rapid “jolt” to the economy.
As far as political arguments go, “I won” has its power—provided it’s made on behalf of an agenda ratified by the American electorate. But Obama didn’t campaign on a sprawling, nearly $1 trillion new spending plan. If he had pledged in October to double federal domestic discretionary spending in a matter of weeks—including increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts by a third, spending hundreds of millions more on federal buildings and throwing tens of billions on every traditional liberal priority from job training to Pell Grants—he’d have been hard-pressed to win at all.
The president should read the transcript of the third presidential debate. He claimed his program represented “a net spending cut.” He called himself “a strong proponent of pay-as-you-go. Every dollar that I’ve proposed, I’ve proposed an additional cut so that it matches.” He added, “We need to eliminate a whole host of programs that don’t work.”
Now, circumstances change, and no president can adhere to every jot and tittle from his campaign, but the “I won” argument only works if the campaign program matches the governing program. Obama himself seems confused on what exactly “I won” means.
In a meeting with congressional Republicans, he brandished “I won” as a defense of his version of tax relief.
(Excerpt) Read more at article.nationalreview.com ...
If he won, then he doesn’t need Republican support in order to cram this socialist spending down our throats using the economy as an excuse.
That’s it in a nutshell!!You got it, Mr. Bill.
Man, all y’all just TIRED! Put down the Hater-ade.
Ya’ll just hatin’ on our shining African prince—you see a proud, strong brother, large and in charge, with his ebony queen by his side-showing the world what strong Black love is about, and you gotta try to take him down—it’s your own ignorance that’s the problem-got all that hater-ation in ya.
Ya’ll ain’t seen a righteous brother representin’-he’s elevating the flow, and ya’ll perpetrators don’t like it.
Obama’s gonna fix the United Snakes of AmriKKKa-just like righteous warriors liked David Dinkins, Marion Barry, and Kwame Kilpatrick worked their magic in our cities. They don’t get no credit from the ignorant haters, either, after all they did. Man, I remember some fool talkin’ about Detroit, sayin’ the way it is now is nothing like it was 50 years ago.
True dat.
/SARC
He might have won but we lost, big time.
Good point, but he really didn't win running on anything other than a vague and ever-morphing "change."
When he got tripped on the details -- whether past associations, questionable political contributions, his abortion stand in the Illinois senate or other issues that contradicted the official vagueness -- he fought back by labeling the charges "distractions," and "smears."
He's doing basically the same now, wanting no discussion of details, labeling his opponents as obstructionists, and couching his argument in generalities and fear-mongering.
Now that would be fun to watch. :)
The media likes the idea of a public opinion “mandate” because they influence public opinion. But in a Republic we elect leaders to lead, not to follow malleable public opinion.
I doubt it. I think he’s rather steel-like. His radical agenda is too important to him to break doing it, I think.
and OWN IT.
That’s the problem with Barry - he doesn’t want to own it.
Must not be very confident that it’ll work, eh?
Yes, he wants the GOP's hands to get dirty with his schemes as well, but so far the Repubs seem to have been surprisingly smart enough to realize that and resist.
They were too busy endlessly grilling Sarah Palin.
If Zero goes down as a big failure, the media will be culpable in that as well.
Kinda liking that scenario...
I look at Obama’s reign as God’s withdrawing His blessing from our country. I always saw Clinton as a shot across our bow... I hope and pray that we regain God’s pleasure.
Put down the HOPium and step away from the crack pipe :)
“i won”
now what? (how sad.)
IMHO
So where is the conservatism here?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
I think, to understand my point, you have to look at the way things are right now in this country, rather than how they should be. IMO, many of those who voted for Obama were voting for their own interests, and fattened wallets, with little or no understanding of the long-term consequences of unrestrained government spending, so, yes, in a sense, this is "the change people were voting for."
Most excellent retort!
That would make a great visual. Use computer graphics to make the morphing continuous.
Fred Barnes admitted that, into the Bush years, President Clinton in retrospect was looking more competent than he previously thought. I think it is not too soon to say President Bush is looking more and more competent every day.
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