Finally, A Serious Deficit Hawk Emerges for the Campaign of 2012, Vowing to be "Absolute Tyrant" on Spending

Thank God, at last, a candidate for 2012 committed to deficit reduction and limited government and reduced spending!

That candidate? Barack Hussein Obama.

The word went out among Washington politicos yesterday: Barack Obama is about to become very, very tough on federal spending.

I was talking to a Democratic strategist yesterday (our talks are always on a no-name-used basis). He is a supporter of health care reform -- he prefers the Baucus bill at the moment -- but told me that, immediately after winning the health care battle, Obama needs to take a radically different course.

"As soon as health care reform is over, he needs to pivot hard to becoming a deficit and spending hawk and a jobs creator," the strategist told me. "He should say, 'We did the stimulus because the world would have collapsed if we didn't. We did health care because it's something that needed to be done for working families and will reduce the deficit by $100 billion over the next ten years. And now, we're going to become absolute tyrants on spending, and that means I'm going to be vetoing things.'"

I asked whether Obama, after presiding over the stimulus, the bailouts, the big Democratic budget, the House cap-and-trade vote, health care reform, and finally, a tripling of the already-high federal deficit, could plausibly position himself as a spending hawk. "Their principle failure is that they have allowed themselves to be defined as government interventioners and huge spenders," the strategist told me. "If he becomes the great expander of government and the great increaser of spending, he's going to get destroyed in 2012."

But Obama already is the great expander of government and the great increaser of spending, I said. There's a factual basis for his image. How can he change that? "He's got the bully pulpit," the Democrat said. "When he opens his mouth, everybody writes it. He needs to open his mouth on this and frame it and define it until it's holy writ."

Ah, right. He's going to talk about shit and expect the media to cover his ass by relentlessly repeating his claims without fact-checking them. (Only SNL sketches get fact-checked these days.)

What a novel strategy. That well's not going dry anytime soon.

John MacEnroe just emailed me to say "You cannot be serious!"

Also, a rape-battered chicken just emailed me to say he doesn't want just the men who violated to be prosecuted, but the men "who stood and watched and clapped," like in The Accused. He asked me for Kelly McGinnis' phone number, which I do not have.

posted by Ace at 01:33 PM

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