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Saturday, September 8, 2012

The "One" Goes for Two--Blaming Us?

Maureen Dowd's Sunday column today: A savage takedown of Obama (surprised? remember her hits against Clinton and Gore?) for, in her view, blaming us for his troubles in his big speech.  Apparently when he attributed whatever he'd accomplished to his supporters she took that as also blaming them ("We") for his failures.  "Our forbearing leader didn’t pander to us with that standard breakup line: 'It’s not you, it’s me.'  He gave it to us straight: It’s not me, it’s you."

Excerpt, but it's all in this vein:
We never should have let the Congressional Democrats run wild with their stimulus spending on pork that didn’t even create the right kinds of jobs.
It also took us too long to realize what the party of know-nothings and no-everything was up to. We should never have walked into that blind budget alley with John Boehner. We should have realized, after the first of three phone calls went unreturned, that even with a few more merlots under his belt, the speaker wouldn’t have the guts to tell us he couldn’t get a grand bargain through his Tea Party House.
We should never have delegated health care to Max Baucus and let him waste time trying to cut a deal with Senate Republicans who had no intention of going along even with ideas — like the individual mandate — that they backed first.
We should have listened to Joe Biden instead of getting rolled by the generals on Afghanistan.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

RE: "John Boehner...the speaker wouldn’t have the guts to tell us he couldn’t get a grand bargain through his Tea Party House."

Thank Goodness. I don't want a deal which cuts Social Security and raises taxes on the rich.

As Atrios has written: "Grand Bargains are neither grand nor bargains."

Social Security shouldn't be cut.

Taxes on the rich will go up as long as Obama refuses to sign another extension of the Bush tax cuts.

- Eric Jaffa

Sasha Stone said...

I knew someone was going to go after Obama for that "it was you, not me" thing. Pity it had to be Maureen Dowd who has at last jumped the shark

Anonymous said...

Oh for God's sake, Maureen Dowd, who I usually respect, should be ashamed at twisting Obama's words so badly. As a writer, she seriously thinks he blamed American citizens for his failings simply because he praised Americans for recent successes within the US? What happened to journalists recognizing nuances in language? When did so many journalists decide that all political discussion must take place with everyone pretending to be in second grade? I'm surprised she didn't just say the President has cooties.