Captain Kick-Ass To Explain Case To American People For Tenth Time at 11 am Eastern
"Part of This Job Is Having a Thick Skin"

So Far... A live streaming feed at Fox.

He briefly mentioned trimming waste from Medicare, then went into the meat of his proposal -- "hundreds of billions" more in cuts to Defense, and increased revenues. He calls this "a balanced approach."

Also, he said he hopes Republicans "aren't just listening to lobbyists."

Once again restates that he is willing to cut Medicare, but not reform it. See, if you reform it, those cuts might wind up not being severe, as market forces bring down prices.

If you do it the way Obama and the liberals insist -- cuts without reform -- then those cuts are just plain cuts.

And he says he's doing this as a service.

Oh my God, he's taking credit for Bowles-Simpson, who said the same things the last 4 panels on the problem said, and then claims he supported it. He didn't. He called it an "interesting starting point for discussion" or some crap like that.

Claims he committed no error by not pushing Bowles-Simpson, because, he says, the American people are already sold on it, so this means it was good and right he spent six months playing golf and going on vacation and singing with Paul McCartney.

Is now claiming that entire problem of overspending is due to Bush -- tax cuts, Medicare drug benefit, two wars, recession.

Politically astute here in now claiming this is all easy to fix that requires no "radical" solutions. People like hearing they don't need to make tough decisions.

Continues vowing we don't need a balanced budget amendment. Also starts whining that we shouldn't do this as a "multiyear" process -- that is, he is insisting again we do one debt ceiling rise that gets us to 2013.

...

Here's a preview. These are Obama's prepared remarks from a July 11th presser...

And it is possible for us to construct a package that would be balanced, would share sacrifice, would involve both parties taking on their sacred cows, would involved some meaningful changes to Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid that would preserve the integrity of the programs and keep our sacred trust with our seniors...

And those were prepared remarks; he wasn't wining this. This was written for him.

First he uses the cliche "sacred cows" to indicate things that ought not be sacred at all. When he's talking about Republican sacred cows.

Then, in the same sentence, he proposes respecting his own sacred cow, and actually uses the word "sacred" to boot, in "sacred trust."

Caution: Genius at work.

Funny how the media doesn't call Obama on playing politics here. The media knows that America's solvency relies upon some reform to our entitlements -- as I keep saying, the media itself has been making this case for at least 20 years. This is a broken-clock-twice-a-day deal. They're right. What they've been saying for 20 years is right.

But now comes a machine pol whom they love, love, love and suddenly they've reversed their position on whether entitlements need to be reformed. Need? Well that's an awfully strong word, need...

The media acts as if Obama's making a big compromise by offering some small reforms in entitlements. (By the way, he always takes these offers back.)

Is he?

Is it really Obama giving up something critical when he floats the idea of entitlement reform? Is he really bending over backwards to accommodate Republicans with such noises?

Or is he actually fulfilling a campaign promise he made over and over again on the campaign trail?

Can Obama Actually Achieve Entitlement Reform?

...

As daunting as the obstacles to reform are, Obama is banking on a number of recent developments to allow him to succeed where Bush and Clinton failed.

That's from just one month into Obama's then not-yet-a-failure presidency, as he convened some kind of meeting to figure out how to fulfill his campaign promise to reform entitlement spending, and by "reform," we mean what we've meant for the 20 years: We mean "cut."

Obama made this promise, Media. You guys noted it yourself. You praised him for it.

And then, after praising him for this promise, you talked up how he could succeed in this where Clinton and Bush (idiots! numskulls!) had failed.

And now you're telling me the opposite? Now you're claiming that Obama always vowed to hold the line to the penny on entitlement spending (his current stance) and to give any on this represents a huge, huge concession to the GOP?

How about, no? How about this is and always was a non-partisan/bipartisan "GooGoo" (good government) venture? So it's not a concession at all by Obama, but rather the fulfillment of something he repeatedly promised to do, and, hell, even got some votes for promising to do?

Thanks to Hot Air for the opening quote from Althouse.

Below, video of the Washington Press Corps protecting Obama.

Vid thanks to RDBrewer, and also RSMcCain for re-posting it to me.

posted by Ace at 10:54 AM

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