After seventeen months of huge majorities in both Houses of Congress and a fawning press the President went to Pittsburgh today for his much needed fix and launched an attack on…George Bush and Republicans.
PITTSBURGH–President Barack Obama, his presidency bogged down in the Gulf oil spill, lashed out at Republicans Wednesday, linking their deregulatory philosophy to misdeeds by bankers, insurers and oil companies.
Congressional Republicans, he said, have a “sincere and fundamental belief” that government has “little or no role to play in helping this nation meet our collective challenges.
“If you’re a Wall Street banker or insurance company or oil company, you pretty much get to play by your own rules, regardless of the consequences to everyone else,” Mr. Obama said.
Republicans, he said, “gutted regulations and put industry insiders in charge of industry oversight.”
For the umpteenth time let’s break this down: the bankers and financiers that Obama attacks as instruments of Republican influence gave more than two to one to Obama and the Democrats in the 2006 and 2008 election cycle. The insurers have given more to Democrats in the 2010 election cycle. President Obama is the biggest recipient of British Petroleum largesse during the last decade. So how do we square these facts with the President’s statements in Pittsburgh today? The answer is that the President’s demagoguery and the facts can’t be reconciled any more than oil can mix with water. These statements, all blatantly false, are the inevitable result of an Executive being consumed by events. Simply put, he’s in Denial and completely out of touch.
President Obama predictably hit the road today to do the only thing he knows how to do: campaign. What he is campaigning for is not quite clear given the notable absence of several Democratic politicians who chose to avoid the event in Pittsburgh today. This President does not require Republican cooperation to accomplish any of its legislative goals yet he continues to run against them as the members of his own party avoid him. Has anyone seen Joe Sestak?
Clearly an intervention is in order.
November can’t get here soon enough.
