Obama Liquidates Himself

[dandi]

PAUL KRUGMAN

A spending freeze? That’s the brilliant response of the Obama team to their first serious political setback?

It’s appalling on every level.

snip

It’s bad long-run fiscal policy, shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.

And it’s a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view — and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008. A correspondent writes, “I feel like an idiot for supporting this guy.”

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/obama-liquidates-himself/

Ahhh, the sweet tears of flailing liberals.....   

[Doc]

MEMO TO: Mr. Krugman

SUBJECT:  Ponies

Sir, we regret to inform you that the "free pony train" went over a cliff last week, somewhere in Massachusetts.  Unfortunately few survived, and the ones that did are running to the "right" as fast as their short little legs will carry them.

Delivery of said ponies will be therefore delayed indefinitely.  If you are urgently in need of a free pony, please call 1-800-Tough S**T........

doc

[dandi]

MEMO TO: Mr. Krugman

SUBJECT:  Ponies

Sir, we regret to inform you that the "free pony train" went over a cliff last week, somewhere in Massachusetts.  Unfortunately few survived, and the ones that did are running to the "right" as fast as their short little legs will carry them.

Delivery of said ponies will be therefore delayed indefinitely.  If you are urgently in need of a free pony, please call 1-800-Tough S**T........

doc

 

[Oceander]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/obama-liquidates-himself/

Ahhh, the sweet tears of flailing liberals.....   

Ah yes, Paul Krugman, the great unraveling author:

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

MEMO TO: Mr. Krugman

SUBJECT:  Ponies

Sir, we regret to inform you that the "free pony train" went over a cliff last week, somewhere in Massachusetts.  Unfortunately few survived, and the ones that did are running to the "right" as fast as their short little legs will carry them.

Delivery of said ponies will be therefore delayed indefinitely.  If you are urgently in need of a free pony, please call 1-800-Tough S**T........

doc

Government Stimulus Program Goes Tragically Awry

Abbotsford, WI - This sleepy midwestern town had been the scene of much fanfare in recent months. Struggling under the burden of a lingering economic recession the population of 2,000 residents were expecting relief from an adminsitration many here had campaigned for as the panacea to the nation’s financial woes.

Plucked from obscurity by White House economic policy staffers eager to demonstrate the efficacy of Obama’s stimulus programs, Abbotsford was do to receive its first major installment under the provisions of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act until a confluence of innocuous events conspired to unleash tragedy.

The epicenter of Abbotsford’s misfortunes centered on mass layoffs at the local glue factory which has left the town straining under an unemployment rate almost double the national average but that didn’t mean their plight was unheard of or unaddressed by a fresh-faced adminstration eager to come to the aid of this troubled community or the hundreds just like it around the country.

“We really listened to our supporters,” said Megan Cartwright of the White House’s stimulus oversight office. “We conducted numerous polls and focus groups and we feel like what our base is looking are free ponies and that’s what we wanted to give them.” And with that in mind 200 snowy white colts were dispatched to the struggling citizens of Abbotsford.

Yet, despite the high hopes a simple clerical error saw the ponies delivered to the glue factory instead.

“We were devastated,” said the town’s mayor, Agnus Dalrymple. “When I heard the news that the ponies were coming I was elated but then I saw the manifest and I thought to myself, something’s not right. I shook it off because this was Obama, right? They have to know what they were doing.”

Small children from the town and the rest of the county had gathered with their parents along the main thoroughfare to await the arrival of the ponies in their caravan of sleek, silvery trailers. But joy soon turned to horror as the caravan drove past the cheering throngs straight up to the smoke-belching factory that overlooks the town.

“The children were wailing,” recalls Mayor Dalrymple. “And no sooner had we begun to quiet them than we heard the whinying cries off in the distance and the tears began all over again.”

When news of the misfortune reached Washington, White House staffers sprang into action releasing a statement blasting FOX News for rushing to publish the story.

“Those ponies were to open new frontiers in the president’s economic vision for America and all they can do find fault,” said Ms. Cartwright. “This wasn’t just about the ponies but the spin-off industries of livery stables, feed lots and faux leather saddles and its an environmentally sound direction designed to ower the nation’s carbon footprint.”

Conservative critics assailed the policy claiming it was based on little more than ongoing evidence that the president is beholden to the blacksmith’s union. Their green solution leaves brown problems, read bumperstickers springing-up around the country.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I’m mystified by what he’s trying to accomplish politically here. The basic idea is to win back independents by showing that Democrats are serious about trimming government bloat, right? Well, (a) the savings from the freeze are too small to impress many fiscal conservatives, (b) if Obama does try to compensate by ramping up security spending, he’ll be attacked by righties for having supposedly broken his freeze promise (even though he actually wouldn’t be breaking it, but oh well) and (c) the outrage on the left over even a small freeze may end up convincing indies that congressional Democrats will never, ever cut spending and are simply hopeless — which would be a complete backfire. In fact, given the progressive outcry, it’s an open question if Congress will even sign off on this: Reid is noncommittal, and if ObamaCare goes down, they’re going to have to give the base something or else turnout will collapse in the midterms. This would have made some sense if Obama had tried it in 2012, since then, even if the House and Senate shot it down, he’d benefit personally in the election by being able to claim that at least he tried. But there’s no personal benefit to doing it now. On the contrary, he’s forced congressional Dems — whose political lives are already on the line — into a horrible dilemma: Either they reject the freeze and piss off independents or they approve the freeze and piss off the left. Smooth move, champ.

http://hotair.com/archives/2010/01/26/left-in-full-freakout-mode-over-obamas-spending-freeze/

EDIT: I would add: it proves the lie that Porkulus was based upon. Obama--in typically unpresidential fashion--derided critics of stimulus by saying, "they say it spends too much money but what do they think a stimulus is?"

If spending money simply for the sake of spending money was such a hot idea then spending freezes would actually counter his intentions.

This president is done. He has no guiding principles apart from the raw seizure of power but he cannot do that openly. Yet, he cannot even fabricate good excuses anymore he's just making shit up as he goes along. The radiance has vanished beneath a layer of tarnish. People are on to him and soon he'll be radioactive to his own party.

He's done.

I'm calling this game over. The rest is just playing out the clock.

[Chris_]

Government Stimulus Program Goes Tragically Awry

Abbotsford, WI - This sleepy midwestern town had been the scene of much fanfare in recent months. Struggling under the burden of a lingering economic recession the population of 2,000 residents were expecting relief from an adminsitration many here had campaigned for as the panacea to the nation’s financial woes.

Plucked from obscurity by White House economic policy staffers eager to demonstrate the efficacy of Obama’s stimulus programs, Abbotsford was do to receive its first major installment under the provisions of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act until a confluence of innocuous events conspired to unleash tragedy.

The epicenter of Abbotsford’s misfortunes centered on mass layoffs at the local glue factory which has left the town straining under an unemployment rate almost double the national average but that didn’t mean their plight was unheard of or unaddressed by a fresh-faced adminstration eager to come to the aid of this troubled community or the hundreds just like it around the country.

“We really listened to our supporters,” said Megan Cartwright of the White House’s stimulus oversight office. “We conducted numerous polls and focus groups and we feel like what our base is looking are free ponies and that’s what we wanted to give them.” And with that in mind 200 snowy white colts were dispatched to the struggling citizens of Abbotsford.

Yet, despite the high hopes a simple clerical error saw the ponies delivered to the glue factory instead.

“We were devastated,” said the town’s mayor, Agnus Dalrymple. “When I heard the news that the ponies were coming I was elated but then I saw the manifest and I thought to myself, something’s not right. I shook it off because this was Obama, right? They have to know what they were doing.”

Small children from the town and the rest of the county had gathered with their parents along the main thoroughfare to await the arrival of the ponies in their caravan of sleek, silvery trailers. But joy soon turned to horror as the caravan drove past the cheering throngs straight up to the smoke-belching factory that overlooks the town.

“The children were wailing,” recalls Mayor Dalrymple. “And no sooner had we begun to quiet them than we heard the whinying cries off in the distance and the tears began all over again.”

When news of the misfortune reached Washington, White House staffers sprang into action releasing a statement blasting FOX News for rushing to publish the story.

“Those ponies were to open new frontiers in the president’s economic vision for America and all they can do find fault,” said Ms. Cartwright. “This wasn’t just about the ponies but the spin-off industries of livery stables, feed lots and faux leather saddles and its an environmentally sound direction designed to ower the nation’s carbon footprint.”

Conservative critics assailed the policy claiming it was based on little more than ongoing evidence that the president is beholden to the blacksmith’s union. Their green solution leaves brown problems, read bumperstickers springing-up around the country.

Damn snugs.....I stand in awe of your boundless creativity.......

doc