Right Wing Nut House

Let me get this straight. We have 9% unemployment, an obscenely high deficit of $1.4 trillion, a national debt that is exploding, the real possibility of a double dip recession, the loss of our gold plated debt rating, financial markets poised to repeat the meltdown of 2008, the Euro-zone facing its own financial catastrophe, two wars, and a restless, dispirited population.

And the president pulls a juvenile political stunt by knowingly and deliberately scheduling his speech on how he plans to assist business in creating jobs on the same day and time as a nationally televised GOP candidate debate?

James Carville:

“I do think this is a really big debate and I think the White House was out of bounds…in trying to schedule a speech during a debate,” Carville said on “GMA.”

This will be Gov. Rick Perry’s first debate, and as Carville said this morning the stakes are high.

“Given a choice between watching a debate and the speech I would have watched the debate and I’m not even a Republican or even close to being a Republican,” he said, adding it will be a “barn burner.”

This is the kind of stunt that Donald Segretti would have pulled at USC - or the Nixon White House where every cockamamie scheme to damage Democrats received a serious airing and some were even adopted. Segretti would send out flyers announcing a campaign appearance by a Democratic candidate only he’d give the wrong place and time.

Obama’s handlers thought that the GOP would acquiesce and move their debate because of the scheduling conflict and Obama would have made his point; the jobs speech is more important than the opposition political debate. He would have also scored points with his base for sticking it to the GOP.

But Boehner blew it up in his face, making his campaign team look clueless in the process. They managed to reschedule the speech on the same night that the NFL season kicks off with a game between the last two Super Bowl winners - Green Bay and New Orleans. Any bets on which event pulls in more TV viewers?

It isn’t so much the inept gamesmanship that is so bothersome. It’s the petty nature of the entire affair. The attempt at upstaging the GOP makes the president look small, indeed. Any time a president brings himself down to the level of his opposition, he comes off badly by comparison. It makes one wonder if these are the same guys who ran a brilliant campaign back in 2008 that ended up an electoral landslide.

Now they’re the gang that can’t shoot straight. Cenq Unger on Obama’s “Rope-a-dope” strategy:

Here is what all voters, and especially independents, despise and disdain in a politician — weakness. Nobody wants to see their leader get beat to a pulp every night and then bow his head again.

There is no secret, brilliant strategy. This White House is in a bubble. They think they’re winning when the roof is about to cave in.

I am forced to agree. If this is an example of their idea of strategy, the GOP could nominate a pie-eyed prostitute and probably win. They don’t have a clue on jobs, the economy, or most importantly, projecting an image of Obama’s leadership that would invite the public to support him. The picture most people are getting in their minds of the president is, contrary to what Unger says, a partisan, petulant, whining politician who blames everyone else for the nation’s problems and grumbles about how hard the challenges are. Democrats are finding it harder and harder to defend him and his policies. Soon, they won’t even bother and it will be every Democrat for themselves.

It’s not Obama’s willingness to “compromise” (?) or his efforts at “bi-partisanship” (?) that have him in trouble with the voters. Its that we have enormous problems and his policies are not helping. Trillions in “stimulus” spending and the best the White House can do is claim that all that cash “saved” jobs. Massive health insurance reform that we were told would “bend the curve” on health care costs that has done the opposite. More hundreds of billions spent on plans to prop up mortgages from underwater homeowners failing miserably. The list is endless - and depressing.

The speech ploy demonstrates that the president is not serious about getting the economy moving again and creating jobs. He is intent on getting re-elected while allowing things to drift, hoping that things don’t get much worse and that his efforts to blame the GOP for all the horrors in the world succeeds.

It’s not what we need from a president now. But it’s all we’ve got.