Obama’s “Inheritance” and All You Liars

posted at 10:02 am on October 20, 2009 by Howard Portnoy
[ Economics ]    printer-friendly

Obama’s at it again—whining about the “mess” he “inherited” and accusing anyone who disagrees with him of being deceitful. He did a little of both last week, some of it on his own, some through his surrogates.

As for the whining about his “inheritance,” here is the president himself, at a Democratic fund-raiser in San Francisco:

And here is James Taranto’s pointed reaction at BOTWT:

This has been a recurring theme in President Obama’s rhetoric. As we noted last week, he frequently refers to the ‘mess’ that he ‘inherited.’ But the presidency is not an inheritance, it is a responsibility that Obama sought. To the extent that the country is a ‘mess,’ it is not ‘somebody else’s mess’; it is all of our mess. If Obama’s policies make matters worse rather than better, it won’t be his mess either; all of us will have to live with the consequences.

It’s fine for an opposition candidate to decry the ‘mess’ created by he party in power, as Obama did last year and Republicans are doing now. But this style of rhetoric is unpresidential. It’s reminiscent of the petulant teenager who tries to evade responsibility by asserting, ‘I didn’t ask to be born!’

Except that the teen’s statement is literally accurate. No one asks to be born. Barack Obama did ask to be president.

Steve Huntley, writing in Obama’s hometown paper, the Chicago Sun-Times, covers appearances on the Sunday news show circuit (excluding the “enemy,” FOX News, of course) by White House top mouthpieces, David Axelrod and Rahm Emanuel. Said Axelrod (who might as well have been speaking for both, since each used the same script): “He walked in the door, we had the worst economy since the Great Depression.”

This sudden return to the “mess” meme is in reaction to the report that the federal deficit has risen to an historical $1.4 trillion. It may just be me, but didn’t Obama himself have a little something to do with that deficit? Maybe it’s my faulty memory, but I seem to recall Obama rushing Congressional passage of an $787 billion “stimulus” package early in his administration. I’m pretty sure I remember reading in January that passing a bill of this magnitude would force the deficit up toward the $2-trillion mark.

As for those enemies and all the dissemblers whose sole mission is to spread enough lies to take down the administration, FOX News is merely the tip of the iceberg. Other un-American voices include those of the health insurance industry, who was a direct recipient of Obama’s personal wrath during this past Saturday’s radio and Internet message. “Smoke and mirrors,” is how he reacted to their claim that the Senate approach to health care reform would raise premiums 18 percent more than otherwise would happen over the next decade. Take that, ya chiselers! You, too, you sniveling doctors who cut off legs and pull out tonsils just to fatten your purses!

Luckily, the president has friends in the media to offset his enemies. Huntley writes about an MSNBC personality who recently accused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce of lobbying for policies that amount to being “treasonous to this country.” It’s easy to understand why Obama would favor such fair and balanced coverage as that over the swill served up by FOX News!

Cross-posted at Zombie Contentions

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