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Authors: David Limbaugh
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BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic
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THE MEDICARE SCARE
“A SUGAR-COATED SATAN SANDWICH”
As far as the Democrats were concerned, during the budget debates there weren’t any depths to which the Republicans would not sink. Vice President Biden said the Republicans were asking those who are struggling to bear the burden and letting the most fortunate off the hook, which Biden said bordered on being immoral. When CBS News’ Chip Reid asked White House press secretary Jay Carney, “Does the president agree with that?” Carney replied, “Why, I think he does. Yes.”
105
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Biden said it was wrong to ask senior citizens receiving Medicare to pay more in taxes when people earning more than $1 million a year receive a substantial tax cut. Of course, that was a complete distortion, since Republicans were proposing neither an increase in taxes for lower income groups or seniors nor a tax cut for those earning more than $1 million per year. They were merely standing their ground in refusing to allow the years-old Bush tax cuts to expire for the highest income bracket—for individuals making $200,000 per year and households $250,000 a year—not $1 million and above as Biden misrepresented. Republicans were not demanding further cuts, but only that the existing rates for all income brackets remain the same.
At a speech in mid-April ostensibly to unveil his own budget plan, Obama concentrated largely on denouncing Republicans, some of whom were attending the event at Obama’s invitation. According to the
Washington Post
, Obama “repeatedly attacked the budget released by the House GOP last week in a sharp, partisan tone…. In the speech, he used as many words to attack the GOP proposal as to lay out his own.” Obama said, “A 70 percent cut in clean energy, a 25 percent cut in education, a 30 percent cut in transportation, cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That’s the proposal. These aren’t the kinds of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget. These aren’t the kinds of cuts that the fiscal commission proposed. These are the kinds of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America that I believe in and, I think, you believe in.”
106
Washington Post
, Obama “repeatedly attacked the budget released by the House GOP last week in a sharp, partisan tone…. In the speech, he used as many words to attack the GOP proposal as to lay out his own.” Obama said, “A 70 percent cut in clean energy, a 25 percent cut in education, a 30 percent cut in transportation, cuts in college Pell Grants that will grow to more than $1,000 per year. That’s the proposal. These aren’t the kinds of cuts you make when you’re trying to get rid of some waste or find extra savings in the budget. These aren’t the kinds of cuts that the fiscal commission proposed. These are the kinds of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America that I believe in and, I think, you believe in.”
106
Though Obama had offered no plan to reform Medicare, and the GOP-backed Ryan Plan was geared precisely toward saving the program, Obama declared that the Republicans’ plan would “end Medicare as we know it.” It was vintage Obama, excoriating a Republican proposal but offering nothing of his own, and using Republicans as props and the event as a campaign stunt, just as he did in the fraudulently labeled “Bipartisan Health Care Summit.” Obama continued, “Their vision is less about reducing the deficit than it is about changing the basic social compact in America.” Then came the inevitable class warfare: “There’s nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. And I don’t think there’s anything courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.”
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The
Washington Post
could not ignore Obama’s lack of substance and absence of details, observing, “Even as he savaged the GOP proposal, Obama was less than specific about his own. He did not say exactly how he would reform how corporations are taxed, what he would do to achieve a simpler tax system or which defense programs he would cut. On Social Security, he not only didn’t announce a proposal but would not say whether one was likely to be included in the final legislation.”
108
Washington Post
could not ignore Obama’s lack of substance and absence of details, observing, “Even as he savaged the GOP proposal, Obama was less than specific about his own. He did not say exactly how he would reform how corporations are taxed, what he would do to achieve a simpler tax system or which defense programs he would cut. On Social Security, he not only didn’t announce a proposal but would not say whether one was likely to be included in the final legislation.”
108
Congressman Paul Ryan responded with disbelief, disappointment, and uncharacteristic albeit righteous anger to Obama’s pugnacious tone. “I am very disappointed in the president,” Ryan declared:
I was excited when we got invited to attend his speech today. I thought the president’s invitation … was an olive branch. Instead, what we got was a speech that was excessively partisan, dramatically inaccurate, and hopelessly inadequate to addressing our country’s pressing fiscal challenges. What we heard today was not fiscal leadership from our commander in chief. What we heard today was a political broadside from our campaigner in chief…. Rather than building bridges, he’s poisoning wells. By failing seriously to confront the most predictable economic crisis in our nation’s history, the president’s policies are committing us and our children to a diminished future. We are looking to bipartisan solutions not to partisan rhetoric…. Exploiting people’s emotions of fear, envy and anxiety is not hope, it’s not change; it’s partisanship. We don’t need partisanship, we don’t need demagoguery, we need solutions.
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In the days that followed, Obama only sharpened his attacks, accusing Republicans of wanting to turn the United States into a “Third World” country because they were not willing to “invest” in infrastructure improvements. “Under their vision,” said Obama, “we can’t invest in roads and bridges and broadband and high-speed rail. I mean, we would be a nation of potholes, and our airports would be worse than places that we thought—that we used to call the Third World, but who are now investing in infrastructure.”
110
With all his haughty criticism, Obama never has explained what happened to that $862 billion of borrowed money he spent for “shovel-ready” jobs to rebuild our infrastructure. He just laughed about his epiphany that shovel-ready jobs don’t actually exist.
110
With all his haughty criticism, Obama never has explained what happened to that $862 billion of borrowed money he spent for “shovel-ready” jobs to rebuild our infrastructure. He just laughed about his epiphany that shovel-ready jobs don’t actually exist.
In the end, after all of Obama’s whining about GOP obstructionism and its refusal to compromise or even negotiate in good faith, once a debt-ceiling deal was reached, the White House bragged that it had strong-armed Republicans into capitulating. It boasted on its blog, “The president stood firm and forced Republicans to back down, preventing them from using the prospect of default as leverage again in six months by ensuring that any additional debt-limit increases will not be needed until 2012.”
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Far from appreciative of the compromise, Obama called Republican opposition to his plan “a manufactured crisis.” As if to suggest that all efforts by Republicans to rein in his spending orgy were solely geared toward harming the economy—never mind that none of his grandiose spending sprees had done anything to stimulate economic growth—Obama said, “Voters may have chosen divided government but they sure didn’t vote for dysfunctional government. They want us to solve problems, they want us to get this economy growing and adding jobs.”
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Obama conspicuously declined to object to querulous reactions to the deal from fellow Democrats. Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, described the agreement as “a sugar-coated Satan sandwich” and “a shady bill.”
113
Congressman Luis Gutierrez proclaimed, “The Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.”
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Congresswoman Maxine Waters declared, “As far as I’m concerned—the tea party can go straight to hell.”
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Congressman Luis Gutierrez proclaimed, “The Tea Partiers and the GOP have made their slash and burn lunacy clear, and while I do not love this compromise, my vote is a hose to stop the burning. The arsonists must be stopped.”
114
Congresswoman Maxine Waters declared, “As far as I’m concerned—the tea party can go straight to hell.”
115
When difficult negotiations yield an agreement, leaders often praise the other side and express hope for more cooperation in the future. But after repeatedly describing Obama’s counterparts as callous, heartless barbarians, Team Obama had gone so far out on the rhetorical ledge that it probably couldn’t climb down even had it wanted to.
“THEIR VISION IS RADICAL”Indeed, Obama used the budget agreement as a launching pad to step up his attacks on the GOP. Just a few days after the agreement was struck, speaking about Republican proposals for entitlement reform at the headquarters of Facebook in Palo Alto, California, he declared, “I think it is fair to say that their vision is radical.” He continued, “I don’t think it’s particularly courageous. Nothing is easier than solving a problem on the backs of people who are poor, or people who are powerless, or don’t have lobbyists, or don’t have clout.”
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At his next campaign stop, in San Francisco, Obama mocked Republicans as “climate change deniers.” Referring to rising oil prices, with no hint that his own policies were partly to blame, he said that curbing our reliance on foreign oil is a “national security imperative.” As usual, he also said nothing of his bitter resistance to increasing domestic oil production. At the home of
SalesForce.com
CEO Marc Benioff, he said, “And then there’s the environmental aspect of it. There are climate change deniers in Congress and when the economy gets tough, sometimes environmental issues drop from people’s radar screens.”
117
SalesForce.com
CEO Marc Benioff, he said, “And then there’s the environmental aspect of it. There are climate change deniers in Congress and when the economy gets tough, sometimes environmental issues drop from people’s radar screens.”
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Switching gears, Obama used the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to offer Republicans another phony olive branch. In an op-ed in
USA Today
, he exhorted Americans to reclaim “the true spirit of America” that united us after the attacks—the “ordinary goodness and patriotism of the American people and the unity that we needed to move forward together, as one nation.” It was odd, given his recent history, to read Obama’s words: “Let’s never forget the lesson we learned anew 10 years ago—that our differences pale beside what unites us and that when we choose to move forward together, as one American family, the United States doesn’t just endure, we can emerge from our tests and trials stronger than before.”
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USA Today
, he exhorted Americans to reclaim “the true spirit of America” that united us after the attacks—the “ordinary goodness and patriotism of the American people and the unity that we needed to move forward together, as one nation.” It was odd, given his recent history, to read Obama’s words: “Let’s never forget the lesson we learned anew 10 years ago—that our differences pale beside what unites us and that when we choose to move forward together, as one American family, the United States doesn’t just endure, we can emerge from our tests and trials stronger than before.”
118
His declared truce was as ephemeral as the “saved or created” jobs he attributes to his stimulus bill. The very day after the 9/11 anniversary, Obama told NBC News that the “vast majority” of Americans reject the “extreme” ideas of the tea party movement. “I do think that the extreme position that you hear that says government has no role to play in growing our economy, that the federal government has no function to play in building a strong middle class, is absolutely wrong. I reject that view. And I think the vast majority of Americans reject that view.”
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Not missing a beat, the next day Obama again accused Republicans of playing political games in opposing his jobs bill. But what Republican would have supported a proposal to spend another $447 billion to “stimulate” the economy when the first “stimulus” bill was such an abject failure and when we are so inundated by debt? Again, he urged his audience to bombard congressmen with tweets and emails to pressure them into further bankrupting the nation. The ongoing irony was that it was Obama who was
always
political,
always
partisan. As Republican National Committee chairman Rence Priebus said, “We all get the joke. He’s in Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina. Doing what? Selling to the American people for his reelection effort.”
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“A STRATEGY OF RUINING THE COUNTRY TO RULE THE COUNTRY”always
political,
always
partisan. As Republican National Committee chairman Rence Priebus said, “We all get the joke. He’s in Virginia, Ohio, and North Carolina. Doing what? Selling to the American people for his reelection effort.”
120
Polarization and divisiveness come as easy to Obama as falling off a log, but, tellingly, at a certain point he made a conscious effort to dial up his militancy as a matter of strategy. David Plouffe, who joined the White House team in January 2011, has been described as “the chief choreographer for the president’s performance.” Plouffe, under heat from the base for not being combative enough—as ludicrous as that charge was—reportedly pushed Obama to adopt a more strident tone. Plouffe had been advising Obama to stay above the fray for fear of alienating independents, but he allegedly yielded to the pressure and “answered the appeals of his party and finally set the president on a more partisan… course.”
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The suggestion that Obama’s default position was anything other than hyper-partisan was patently absurd. But his advisers and the media would have had us believe otherwise, obviously assuming we’d been living in a vacuum the past three years, oblivious to Obama’s militant partisanship. So the liberal media persisted in portraying Obama as a veritable pacifist toward his political opponents, as when the
New York Times
wrote, “To the relief of many Democrats, Mr. Obama has become more assertive lately in attacking Republicans and drawing contrasts with them.”
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Similarly,
The Hill
portrayed Obama’s cheap shots at Governor Rick Perry as “some of the most direct and combative for Obama so far,”
123
as if he hadn’t been that petty for years.
New York Times
wrote, “To the relief of many Democrats, Mr. Obama has become more assertive lately in attacking Republicans and drawing contrasts with them.”
122
Similarly,
The Hill
portrayed Obama’s cheap shots at Governor Rick Perry as “some of the most direct and combative for Obama so far,”
123
as if he hadn’t been that petty for years.
Not that Obama’s fellow Democratic strategists needed the prompting, but Obama clearly created a vitriolic climate. Veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum said, “It’s certainly obvious Republicans have established a strategy of ruining the country to rule the country,” adding that Obama should convince voters “that he was a warrior for ordinary people.” Translated, Obama’s charge was to recast “Obama, the reasonable man, as a reasonably angry man.”
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It would be interesting to know if that’s how Shrum would have characterized Obama’s unscripted comments at a private dinner with supporters in Chicago a few months prior. Captured on a hot mic, Obama said, “You want to repeal healthcare? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?”
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It would be interesting to know if that’s how Shrum would have characterized Obama’s unscripted comments at a private dinner with supporters in Chicago a few months prior. Captured on a hot mic, Obama said, “You want to repeal healthcare? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?”
125
This is quite odd and markedly distinct from other presidents. President George W. Bush, for all the unfair partisan arrows he took, always represented himself as leader of all the American people and of the United States. By contrast, Obama deliberately set out on a course to cast himself as a president not of all the people, but only of those whose cause he championed or who had the good sense to side with him. Political commentator Peter Wehner, who worked in the George W. Bush White House, wrote, “Obama has become the most intentionally divisive president we’ve seen in quite some time.” It’s not unusual for a president’s policies to be divisive, admitted Wehner, but Obama “now belongs in a separate category. Each day, it seems, he and/or his supporters are seeking to divide us. The rhetoric employed by the president and his allies is meant to fan the flames of resentment, to turn Americans against one another, and to stoke feelings of envy, grievances, and rage.”
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BOOK: The Great Destroyer: Barack Obama's War on the Republic
13.02Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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