And I thought Obama's SOTU address was impressive…
Yesterday, President Obama spoke and answered questions at a House Republican retreat in Baltimore. Entire transcript here. It's going to be a cold weekend…..so stay in and take the time to read the transcript or go here to watch the entire event. It's that good.
President Obama spent a total of 82 minutes talking to and answering questions by some of his most…..I don't know….colorful….GOP House opponents.
How did it go?
As some unnamed GOP spokesperson said afterwards, "we won't be doing that again."
Conservative wingnuts, as I lovingly call them, live in a bubble. Politically speaking. As many know, The Reverend is a veteran of dialoguing with wingnuts. I've learned quite a bit about the species over the many years I've been engaging them. I've been grateful for the experience and have personally benefited greatly. From my experience I've come to learn how to speak fluent wingnut as well as accurately predict wingnut political manuevers before they take place.
Nowhere is the wingnut political bubble on display more than on Fox "News." Wingnut watchers of Fox insist that because Fox draws the largest "news" audiences…..they are the most trustworthy deliverer of "news" and information. What President Obama did yesterday was expose the truth about Fox and it's audience.
Even though Fox, and others, repeat mistakes and lies continuously…even though a few million Americans take in those mistakes and lies on a regular basis….and even though all wingnuts concerned will swear under oath that Fox is as honest as Old Abe…..outside the wingnut bubble, none of it will hold water.
It was interesting to watch GOP House member after GOP House member run off at the mouth using numerous wingnut bubble talking points…before they asked the President a question. I suppose the GOP House wingers thought they were still operating under the Fox protocol, where they can spout off unchallenged and unrebutted winger bubble talking points with relative ease.
Bill-o…this wasn't.
One typical example…
Mike Pence (R-IN)….
"Now, last year, about the time you met with us, unemployment was 7.5 percent in this country. Your administration and your party in Congress told us that we'd have to borrow more than $700 billion to pay for a so-called stimulus bill that was a piecemeal list of projects and boutique tax cuts, all of which we were told had to be passed or unemployment would go to 8 percent, as your administration said.
Well, unemployment is 10 percent now,….
Republicans offered a stimulus bill at the same time. It cost half as much as the Democratic proposal in Congress. And using your economic analyst models, it would have created twice the jobs at half the cost. It essentially was across-the-board tax relief, Mr. President.
…..you've raised this — a tax credit which was last promoted by President Jimmy Carter.
….would you be willing to consider embracing,…. the kind of across-the-board tax relief that Republicans have advocated, that President Kennedy advocated, that President Reagan advocated, and that has always been the means of stimulating broad-based economic growth?"
What Pence was doing was repeating standard issue Fox wingnut bubble talking points. Pence's "question" was actually a rehearsal of a bogus, yet often repeated, narrative which has become all too familiar to Wingnut Bubble Residents.
According to the Fox Bubble Points,….Obama promised 8% unemployment and has failed miserably because unemployment is at 10%. In the Bubble narrative, Obama's "so-called" stimulus and "boutique" tax cuts, strongarmed into law by Democrats, has been a total and corrupt failure…..only making America's dire economic and unemployment situation, worse. Now, as the Fox Bubble Points go, Obama, like "Jimmy Carter", has proposed a tax credit for new hires….but when will Obama join Fathers, Kennedy and Reagan, and propose "across the board", "broad based", "stimulating",….wait for it…."tax relief?"
Obama, who doesn't live in the Fox Bubble, took no prisoners….
"…the hope was that unemployment would remain around 8 — or in the 8 percent range. That was just based on the estimates made by both conservative and liberal economists because at that point not all the data had trickled in.
We had lost 650,000 jobs in December. I'm assuming you're not faulting my policies for that. We had lost, it turns out, 700,000 jobs in January, the month I was sworn in. I'm assuming it wasn't my administration policies that accounted for that. We lost another 650,000 jobs the subsequent month, before any of my policies had gone in to effect. So I'm assuming that wasn't as a consequence of our policies. That doesn't reflect the failure of the Recovery Act."
Mike Pence had to go to a neutral corner after that series of rapid-fire blows…..but the Wingnut Slayer was relentless…
"…we can score political points on the basis of the fact that we underestimated how severe the job losses were going to be, but those job losses took place before any stimulus, whether it was the ones that you guys have proposed or the ones that we proposed, could have ever taken to effect.
Now, that's just the fact, Mike, and I don't think anybody would dispute that. I — you could not find an economist who would dispute that."
On the "so-called" stimulus and those "boutique" tax cuts,…..
"This notion that this was a radical package is just not true. A third of them were tax cuts. And they weren't — when you say they were boutique tax cuts, Mike, 95 percent of working Americans got tax cuts. Small businesses got tax cuts. Large businesses got help in terms of their depreciation schedules.
I mean, it was a pretty conventional list of tax cuts."
The stimulus was, in reality, a moderate-to-conservative action….
"….the component parts of the Recovery Act are consistent with what many of you say are important things to do: rebuilding our infrastructure, tax cuts for families and businesses, and making sure that we were providing states and individuals some support when the roof was caving in."
President Obama finished up with Mike Pence by shredding, embarassingly for Bubble Residents, the idea that Obama had rejected a better GOP economic proposal that would have "produce(d) twice as many jobs"……
"….. the notion that I would somehow resist doing something that cost half as much but would produce twice as many jobs — why would I resist that? I wouldn't. I mean, that's my point, is that — I am not an ideologue. I'm not. It doesn't make sense if somebody could tell me, "You could do this cheaper and get increased results," that I wouldn't say, "Great."
The problem is, I couldn't find credible economists who would back up the claims that you just made."
That's what a wingnut slaying looks like……and that was only one of many slayings Obama carried out yesterday.
Summarizing: Right-Wingers, Fox viewers, Wingnut Bubble Residents…are not used to having their Bubble Points destroyed in front of their eyes, not used to their Faux-Narratives being deconstructed so skillfully and honestly. But that's what happened yesterday….and that's why conservative Republicans won't be volunteering to do it again.
Tomorrow, I will post on the other very important point Obama made about how Wingnut Republicans have "boxed" themselves in.
