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Deconstructing this week’s Democratic economic agitprop.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 10th, 2012 at 10:29 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

(Via Hot Air) Michael Tomasky, now that he is finished swallowing his gum from watching the Lightworker flail about like… someone who went from undistinguished state Senator to President of the United States in four short years, all the while learning not a darn thing… would like to offer the President a counter-narrative.

The story, in a nutshell, is this: we inherited a total disaster, things are getting better, and Romney will bring us back to disaster. The last part is the most important: putting the emphasis back on the challenger.

Because apparently not even the Online Left is willing to really pretend that this administration can be trusted to come in out of the rain. But enough cheap shots and other innocent amusements: let’s unpack this argument. Such as it is.

We inherited a total disaster

Which the President proceeded to make startlingly worse.

Note, by the way, that at this point it’s a little difficult to discuss actual budgets: the Democrats have been refusing to pass one since before they lost the House of Representatives.

…things are getting better…

No, they are not.

This graph, for those who can’t see it, shows the various rates of job recovery after the epicenter of various recessions. Short version: the deepest recession in over seventy years… and a malignantly slower recovery than any in that time period. Note well, by the way: Barack Obama’s argument is that he can do less to affect the economy than George W. Bush could. Which is almost true (the reality is, Barack Obama is drastically more incompetent at managing a recovery than Bush was), but would not exactly be a flattering admission even if it was true.

…and Romney will bring us back to disaster.

Define ‘disaster.’

For that matter, define ‘bring us back.’ Because we’re having one now.

The last part is the most important: putting the emphasis back on the challenger.

But I’ll grant Tomasky this: changing the subject is about the only way that Barack Obama can hope to get re-elected. Lord knows that telling the truth on the economy won’t help the man.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

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COMMENTS

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  • Joliphant

    I mean its all bad, and a direct result of their policies. If I were in their position I would have tried to talk about anything but news. Our prospects at the Olympics with maybe an athlete up on the podium comes to mind.

  • lineholder

    Obama didn’t want to draw any more attention to the economy than he absolutely had to…then he opened mouth and inserted his foot with his comments about the private sector.

    Since then, all the lefties who had been hiding their own personal hopes about expansion of socialistic big-government behind rose-colored illusions and empty promises started coming out the woodwork in full force….Tomasky, Klein, Krugman, Yglesias, Matthews…you name it and they’ve all set it out there plain as day for all Americans to see…

    They want to see this nation go down the same path that other countries (Greece comes to mind) have been taking!

    I hope Americans are paying attention!

    To use a phrase from acat, the private sector may be in FUD* mood right now, but at least it isn’t to the point of singing that song they use to sing on Hee Haw….

    Gloom, despair and agony on me….WHOOOOAAA

    Elect Obama in November, and that will be our new national anthem (economically speaking) before the end of his second term!

    *FUD = fear, uncertainty and dread

  • BradE

    If Obama loses because “he is incompetent” they will find a smarter candidate. FDR was not stupid, incompetent or inexperienced; he was just wrong.

    We can’t keep running against a candidate. It’s the ideology that makes the difference. Would a smarter, more experienced Obama make socialism work?

    You would be hard pressed to find a better man than George W Bush. The Left has to make up stories about him. But he was wrong about big government. Still, he was where a politician should be with the majority of the people behind him. That’s the problem. And that’s why we have to stop running against the candidate. It isn’t just who wins but why they won. It’s the ideology that makes the difference.

    We need an ideological jack hammer that keeps tearing at the foundations of their crumbling, ancient, decrepit house of horrors. They have failed wherever they have prevailed and destroyed every country they have ever gotten their mailed fists clamped onto. Smiley faced European socialism, jack booted Fascist socialism, totalitarian socialism…does it really matter?

    Obama may be the weakest, dumbest, most incompetent president we have ever had; I don’t think so and I don’t think it matters any more than where he was born. He, and they, are just wrong!

  • http://jakespeaks.wordpress.com/ Jake Walker, no relation

    A Liberal’s worst enemy.

    Wonder if Tomasky has any idea about this?

  • http://www.doctor-bob.biz rsklaroff

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/kristof-from-peace-prize-to-paralysis.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

    ________________________________________
    June 9, 2012
    From Peace Prize to Paralysis
    By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
    IN THE NUBA MOUNTAINS, Sudan

    WHEN a government devours its own people, as in Syria or Sudan, there are never easy solutions. That helps explain President Obama?s dithering, for there are more problems in international relations than solutions, and well-meaning interventions can make a crisis worse.

    Yet the president is taking prudence to the point of paralysis. I?m generally an admirer of Obama?s foreign policy, but his policies toward both Syria and Sudan increasingly seem lame, ineffective and contrary to American interests and values. Obama has shown himself comfortable projecting power ? as in his tripling of American troops in Afghanistan. Yet now we have the spectacle of a Nobel Peace Prize winner in effect helping to protect two of the most odious regimes in the world….

  • http://www.doctor-bob.biz rsklaroff

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/opinion/sunday/the-gops-gay-trajectory.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

    June 9, 2012
    The G.O.P.?s Gay Trajectory
    By FRANK BRUNI

    OVER the past year, the main story line in the push for marriage equality has been the ardor and success with which leading Democratic politicians have taken up the fight. The Democratic governors of New York, Maryland and Washington all promoted and signed same-sex marriage laws, for which President Obama expressed his support last month.

    But the progress within Republican ranks has also been pivotal, not to mention fascinating. And a compelling character in that subplot just added a new twist to the narrative, one that suggests the rapidly changing political dynamics of this issue and its potential import to a party dogged by an image of being culturally out of touch.

    That character is Paul E. Singer, 67, a billionaire hedge fund manager who is among the most important Republican donors nationwide. In just one Manhattan fund-raiser last month, he helped to collect more than $5 million for Mitt Romney?s presidential campaign….

  • http://www.doctor-bob.biz rsklaroff

    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/magazine/liberals-are-ruining-america-i-know-because-i-am-one.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

    {Guzzardi would have us-all ignore this input, but it may be healthier to confront it; it [and the comments] are amazingly devoid of any discussion of issues and, in the process, it seems every key-clich? emerges.}

    RIFF: Liberals Are Ruining America. I Know Because I Am One.

    By STEVE ALMOND
    Published: June 8, 2012 96 Comments
    ?
    ?
    In the spring of 2006, I quit my job as an adjunct professor at Boston College to protest the school?s selection of Condoleezza Rice as commencement speaker. My resignation letter, published online by The Boston Globe, went viral. Over the next few days, I received hundreds of e-mails, evenly divided between praise and condemnation, along with numerous invitations to appear on cable television?.
    ? ?

    ?
    Robert B. Sklaroff, M.D.
    ? Rydal, PA
    I perceive this lamentation as antedating apologia to liberal-acolytes for having failed [on behalf of all progressives] to attract the body-politic to the hard-left.

    I debate D’s on cable-TV [local in Philly-burbs, but uploaded onto youtube]…
    http://abington.patch.com/articles/tv-snippet-abington-patch-bloggers
    …and feel that such issues-oriented discourse yields tangible results.

    I would suggest that the author stop attempting to “shoot the messenger” and, instead, ponder the import of Constitutional Limited Government…and its implications.

    It might be instructive to take each correlative issue [Immigration, jobs, Syria] and dissect-to-the-core; I’m available to listen/learn/chat [215=459-4877].

    This could yield an attitudinal-readjustment comparable to that which many Ex-D’s have experienced [myself, having been a Watergate Freak] during recent decades.

  • renl57

    E.J. Dionne has now flung down the ideological gauntlet, and we can run against the ideology he espouses:

    “WASHINGTON — Why don’t Democrats just say it? They really believe in active government and think it does good and valuable things. One of those valuable things is that government creates jobs — yes, really — and also the conditions under which more jobs can be created….

    “Let’s turn Ronald Reagan’s declaration on its head: Opposition to government isn’t the solution. Opposition to government was and remains the problem. It is past time that we affirm government’s ability to heal the economy, and its responsibility for doing so.”

    http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/06/11/government_is_the_solution_114430.html

  • jomo2009

    been a worthless, left-wing toad.

  • toothpick

    Oh, wait…

    :)

  • tnfriendofcoal101368

    That Mitt Romney took from a 400 million dollar shortfall to a 110 million dollar profit?

  • wbb1950

    There is a scene in the classic movie The Night of The Generals, which speaks directly to the main political issue of our time. In one particular scene where we see Field Marshall Erwin Rommel in a car speeding away from the western front and a private discussion takes place between him and a general who is his confident. The discussion concerns the incipient plot to remove Hitler and whether Rommel should join or not. The general points out that Hitler is still the commander of Germany and its armed forces, and Rommel is Germany?s top soldier, therefore it would be not only dangerous, but treasonous to join in the plot to remove him under any circumstances. Whereupon, the Field Marshall responds as follows: ?When a commander goes mad, he forfeits his right to supremacy. This may be our last chance to save Germany.?

    Now, let us fast forward to our own time. There is strong evidence that Mr. Obama is a similar kind of sociopath. Consider the testimony of the leading expert in that subject Dr. Sam Vaknin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CUp7qdej8g Therefore, the political question is this: are those Democrats who fiercely supported Obama and assured us that he was the Second Coming of Christ, willing to stick with him now that his perverse policies, demented leadership and disastrous consequences are more widely known and understood? In recent days, some Democrats have stepped forward to confront the symptoms?but not the disease itself. None of them have placed the state of mind of Obama squarely in issue?where it needs to be. Mainstream media is too corrupted by self interest to perform that essential task.

  • ss396

    Locusts would be a good metaphor. Destroy what they land on; that’s what they live for.

  • texasref

    The reality was worse than if we had done nothing.

    That says it all.