Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Well, This Is What I Get For Reading Yahoo For News

I'm a teevee journamalist!

http://news.yahoo.com/obama’s-second-term-agenda-is-the-missing-piece-in-his-re-election-plan.html

Wow, what a pile of stupid.

Obama has no vision, except "assisting the middle class" and that's not a vision, because who doesn't like the middle class?

Well, how about the Ryan budget which would - if fully enacted - slash education spending, college grants, health care, blah blah blah and transfer more wealth to the wealthy.  Oh, and probably have to end the mortgage deduction on your taxes which would destroy the value of the single biggest asset most middle class families have.

And then Obama apparently starts talking about infrastructure spending and health care reform.  I mean when is he going to talk policy!?!?!11??

The "writer" also says two things that pissed me off.  First, he talked about how Winston Churchill was thrown out of office a few weeks after VE day, because voters "look to the future, not the past".  In 1945, the voters chose a party platform because they lived in a Parliamentary system.  They didn't throw out Churchill, they threw out the Tories.  Given how unpopular the Republican party is today, I think there might be a parallel there, but not the one the "writer" comes up with.

Second, he says that we are "facing grim times".  Well, maybe.  Or maybe the grim times are finally easing.  There does seem to be a weird fetish among political pundits about doom and gloom.  Social Security is DOOOOOMED!  Medicare is DOOOOOOMED!  America is DOOOOMED!

And yet, the central fact is that we do in fact keep muddling along.

Obama has a tightrope to walk right now on the economy.  By all accounts we have turned the corner, but the main worry is energy prices dragging the recovery down.  And he has to argue a "it could have been worse" position that's tricky.

But framing his policies against the proposed GOP policies and how they effect the middle class is a policy and politics winner.  People want higher taxes on the rich.  They want government "spending" cut except things like unemployment insurance and stuff like that.

Frankly, it's like Mark Halperin and Cokie Roberts fell asleep on their keyboard and this bland piece of CW was accidentally typed out.

(And Oh My God, do not go into the comments section.  It's like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh had a baby.)

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