Is the White House’s well-oiled communications machine coming undone less than six months after President Obama took office?
Based on the past few days of mounting criticism regarding Obama’s top achievement — passage of the $787 billion stimulus — it appears that cracks are beginning to form. The administration wants to avoid distractions from its quest for government-run health care, but the mismanaged stimulus, combined with 9.5% unemployment, make it difficult.
Conservatives should not let this opportunity go to waste.
It started last Thursday with news that unemployment reached its highest level in 26 years. Vice President Joe Biden’s admission Sunday that the administration “misread the economy” prompted Obama to interrupt his scripted Russia trip to clarify Biden’s gaffe. “Rather than say ‘misread,’ we had incomplete information,” Obama told NBC’s Chuck Todd.
There was more bad news today with a Government Accountability Report that contradicted Obama’s own statements about the stimulus. The GAO report even prompted the president’s die-hard supporters at the Center for American Progress to disagree with Obama whether the stimulus should be used to prevent layoffs or pay for longer-term projects to boost the economy.
Perhaps the strongest signal that the administration is nervous came yesterday afternoon when Biden’s office announced a panicked trip to Ohio in the wake of new polling from Quinnipiac University. Obama’s approval rating in Ohio over the past two months dropped from 62% to 49%. It took an even bigger dip among Ohio independents, falling from 59 percent to 38 percent. The president’s ratings on the economy are even worse.
Meanwhile, Republicans are capitalizing on the administration’s missteps by directing their fire at the stimulus.
“This is the greatest fabrication I’ve seen since I’ve been in Congress,” House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) said of Obama’s claim that he had “incomplete information” about the economy. Boehner has made a mockery of the stimulus by enlisting a bloodhound to track down jobs.
At a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing today, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) accused the administration of having “rigged the game in its own favor” by repeatedly citing the “jobs saved” claim Obama loves to trumpet.
Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), chairman of the House Republican Conference, attacked Obama’s July 1 claim that the stimulus had “done its job” in a new web video that promotes a GOP alternative.
Unlike other issues where Republicans capitulated, the stimulus passed the House without a single GOP vote. Now is the time to hang this around Obama’s neck and watch him sink.
Must Debunk Keynes, Once and for All
Spartan4Life Wednesday, July 8th at 2:11PM EDT (link)People are starting to realize that government spending doesn’t work.
Keynes was a semi-communist whose ideas were just that, ideas. Unfortunately, they have been adopted as some kind of dogma for 75 years, despite the fact that they have been an abject failure. Read my Keynes diary here:
http://www.redstate.com/spartan4life/2009/07/03/we-need-to-kill-john-maynard-keynes/
I think that is about to happen
kyle8 Wednesday, July 8th at 3:16PM EDT (link)But there is no “once and for all”. Otherwise we would have been able to learn from the 1970’s. I am afraid that every generation or so has to be reminded the hard way that there is no free lunch.
“Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty”
Kyle
Porkulus II? Fuhgeddaboutit!
Spartan4Life Wednesday, July 8th at 2:14PM EDT (link)Does anybody think there is any appetite in this country for a Porkulus II when these buffoons just pissed away $787B? Methinks not.
I almost hope they try
exitsfunnel Wednesday, July 8th at 2:42PM EDT (link)I think that people are finally really starting to understand the degree to which they were bamboozled by the porkapalooza ’stimulus’ bill. I almost hope that they try to go to the trough again, because I think the result might be real political consequences.
-exits
State aid
Thomas_Hauber Wednesday, July 8th at 3:06PM EDT (link)They will portray it as an unemployment extension and state aid. But in the fine print, of which there will be several hundred pages, will be all sorts of crap.
As it is the dems are going to have a hell of a time
izoneguy Wednesday, July 8th at 2:21PM EDT (link)Justifying anything they have passed while Obama has been president. Can you think of one thing they have passed that has been a help to the American people? They keep saying all these new laws & programs are a benefit to the American people. All I see is the dems benefiting themselves and could care less about working men & women.
“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
Thomas Jefferson
I would love for Obama to explain why he signed a $787B bill
ciscoguy Wednesday, July 8th at 2:29PM EDT (link)that he nor any of his Democratic congressional colleagues had read with “incomplete information” about the state of the economy. I would also like him to provide any discernible evidence that the stimulus is working at all.
Obama's approval will probably Skyrocket among Ohio flies
Tbone Wednesday, July 8th at 2:33PM EDT (link)in that is all that Biden can draw.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
Finally!!!
Bourbeau Wednesday, July 8th at 2:41PM EDT (link)Elections matter and we, as a country, are going to pay dearly for this mistake. However, it is more important to realize your mistake and act to correct it, then to sit back and tolerate it. In that regard, we’re finally waking up to the fact that this man and his ideas are not what we need or want. Let’s hope the Republicans in the Congress have the savy to stall or water down whatever the Democrats are trying to accomplish, and marshall our resources to take the House back in 2010 and put the brakes on this runaway freight train of an administration.
We can reverse everything but
Warrior Wednesday, July 8th at 2:48PM EDT (link)nationalized healthcare. That will have to be killed in the womb.
“Attorney General Holder’s decision to re-open the criminal investigation creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy for those whose cases the Department of Justice had previously declined to prosecute.”
—–signed by former [CIA] directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet, John Deutch, R. James Woolsey, William Webster and James R. Schlesinger.
Read http://www.redstate.com/warrior/ for insightful commentary on today’s events…
So to speak
Warrior Wednesday, July 8th at 2:49PM EDT (link)n/t
“Attorney General Holder’s decision to re-open the criminal investigation creates an atmosphere of continuous jeopardy for those whose cases the Department of Justice had previously declined to prosecute.”
—–signed by former [CIA] directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet, John Deutch, R. James Woolsey, William Webster and James R. Schlesinger.
Read http://www.redstate.com/warrior/ for insightful commentary on today’s events…
Make It About Opportunity
Ron Robinson Wednesday, July 8th at 3:25PM EDT (link)If the Rs simply promise to let worker keep more of what they earn, and keep the government out of their lives, we will win again.
________________________________________
Ron Robinson
e-Commerce Exec at 800Cart.com eCommerce who blogs at watchcenter.blogspot.com For over 15 years, his firm has assisted over 10,000 small merchants to quickly and easily ’self serve’ their businesses to e-commerce prosperity.
I'm Guessing Alot of Blue Collar Folks Are Nostalgic
Spartan4Life Wednesday, July 8th at 5:31PM EDT (link)For that golden age when they had a job. It was called the Bush years.
Yes, maybe my wife and I did build a McMansion. But it required plumbers, electricians, painters, movers, furniture salespeople, bricklayers, drywallers, tilers, cement layers, and a host of other folks who benefitted.
“Green Jobs” is a myth. They lose 500K jobs by attacking the private sector and some wind turbine manufacturer creates 500. Ha.
By next spring, unemployment will be over 14%
Old_Crow Wednesday, July 8th at 6:26PM EDT (link)and Obama will be as popular as malaria. Not only is porkulus II a bad idea, but it would drive us into a decade of malaise.
We need to unwind what hasn’t been spent in the first porkulus bill and focus on cutting government spending. Give the people back their money, let individual taxpayers allocate their resources instead of the current situation where banks hoard assets the government forced the taxpayers to provide.
“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” — James Madison
“So this is how liberty dies.. with thunderous applause” — Star Wars III
By next spring, unemployment will be 0%
David Hinz Wednesday, July 8th at 7:06PM EDT (link)As Stimulus IV will employ 50% of all American digging holes that the other 50% of Americans will be paid to fill back up…
…it will not be productive, but it will be full employment.
FDR did it in the 1930’s and we got tons of fire roads built all over America.
The Minority Report — The HinzSight Report — TMRB.tv — MFOB “Miss Tagart, do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It’s resentment of another man’s achievement.”
Close...
IJB Wednesday, July 8th at 11:09PM EDT (link)…The other 50% will actually be *buried alive* in those holes, on orders from The Dear Leader!
The wheels are coming off obamas' bus
bobojake Wednesday, July 8th at 6:28PM EDT (link)and he will get eaten by his own.
Dems' self-inflicted crisis.
redneck_hippie Wednesday, July 8th at 7:00PM EDT (link)All that remains is for all of us to take advantage of it and replace the statists with conservatives.
“We must not lose our faculty to dare, especially in dark days.” - Churchill in March, 1942.
Remember NY-23.
Mis-read? Incomplete information? Obama lied and the economy died?
Erick Brockway Wednesday, July 8th at 7:07PM EDT (link)Yeah, but Bush’s “Incomplete information” prior to Iraq was a lie, says Obama, etc.
Is anyone even paying attention to this garbage out in Obamaland? The word “bot” doesn’t even fit anymore, unless it’s preceded by “drooling”.
“No compromise with the main purpose, no peace till victory, no pact with unrepentant wrong.”
~Winston Churchill
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Chip in to get rid of “Babs” (Yes ma’am) Boxer.
Had the same thoughts
redneck_hippie Wednesday, July 8th at 8:14PM EDT (link)vis a vis the faulty intelligence on WMD. But that’s looking to the past.
Desperation abounds as O attempts to keep passing the buck back to the Bush years. It ain’t workin, O…And just at the time that The People are starting to pay attention, too. Not only does Obama’s buck not stop there, the buck is being flogged to death on the printing press.
Will the phrase the buck stops here mean the same thing when we have to denominate our currency in wheelbarrows?
“We must not lose our faculty to dare, especially in dark days.” - Churchill in March, 1942.
Remember NY-23.