Posted on 02/05/2009 6:53:00 AM PST by Michael Eden
Tonight Barack Obama ended his interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper with these words:
"Right now I'm learning an awful lot about the economy. I'm not a trained economist, but I'm spending a lot of time thinking about that so that I can make the very best decisions possible for the American people."Really, you gigantic, colossal hypocrite? "Learning an awful lot about the economy"? "Not a trained economist"? Pardon my language, but just where the hell was all that modesty and honesty when you were tearing out John McCain's throat for his similar admission offered at a time when people were making up their minds and when that little bit of honesty was most important?:
So far, Obama appears to have an edge in the economic argument, bolstered in part by McCain's candor on the issue when he said during the Republican primary, "I am not an expert on Wall Street. I am not an expert on this stuff."Oh, yeah, President O-bum-a, you and your propagandist media lackeys were all over that little outbreak of personal honesty and modesty:
"Mr. McCain … has been shadowed by his statements earlier in the campaign that he is not expert in the subject of the economy" bleated MSNBC.The mainstream media was all over McCain to help their messiah win:
Sen. John McCain's comment from last year that he doesn't understand economics "as well as he should" has dogged him all the way to South America today during a foreign trip meant to burnish his standing as a presidential candidate ready to be a world leader.Damn right, the media dogged him. Dogged him all the way out of the country, and right out of contention. And somehow none of them ever bothered to ask, "Just when the hell did Barack Obama ever become an expert in economics or Wall Street?"
But that didn't stop Obama and his worshipful media acolytes from throwing it in John McCain's face the way Muslims throw battery acid into the faces of their women, did it?
Obama had the "The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should" quote memorized to attack John McCain at virtually every single rally. The Obama campaign had an ad that ridiculed McCain entitled, "Don't know much" [about the economy].
Too damn bad we have to find out only now that you don't understand it yourself, Barry. At least John McCain was honest and open about his strengths and weaknesses. You weren't. And in attacking him for his admission, you merely revealed that you don't know much about the virtues of honesty and of avoiding hypocrisy.
Right now, Obama's woeful MIS-understanding of the economy is beginning to seriously hurt us. While John McCain stressed the critical importance of free trade during the campaign, Barack Obama is now beginning to seriously undermine the vital US relationship with trade partners over his socialist union agenda to insert "Buy American" into the so-called stimulus package.
And now, an array of international economic experts (you know, the kind of people who ARE "trained economists") are predicting that Obama's "Buy American" agenda in his stimulus package could actually "stimulate" the next Great Depression.
Meanwhile, this same hypocrite who so dishonestly attacked John McCain for his acknowledgment that he wasn't an economic expert - only to now acknowledge the SAME THING himself after it's too late to do anything about it - has hypocritically appointed tax cheat after tax cheat to his cabinet in spite of all his lofty rhetoric about "changing Washington." He's changed it all right. Thanks to Obama, we now have our first tax cheat serving as Treasury Secretary and head of the IRS. And two of his cabinet appointments (Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer) had to withdraw the same day due to their tax status.
Mark Steyn quipped that this was Obama's version of "pay for play," given that Obama's cabinet picks had to decide how much of their unpaid taxes they would be willing to pay to serve as cabinet members in Obama's administration.
Barack Obama is most certainly not a "trained economist." Hypocrisy, on the other hand, is a subject in which he is clearly most expert, indeed.
Maybe AlGore will be next.
No free society can long survive the climate of propaganda we’re in today.
Amen
How soon they forget!
“The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training.”
- Joe Biden, 2008, during the primary debates.
Too many people don’t listen CRITICALLY to the media - they just think they are watching or reading “the hews” and have no idea of the spin.
that is changing quickly, though.
And he has a nicely shaped head, well proportioned with the rest of his sculpted body.
(Hey, my wife said to try to find something nice to say about everybody, and that's my take on the man.)
----------------
On another note: I thought Timothy Geitner (sp?) was supposed to be the economical whizz kid ("no one else is qualified", etc.) so's that the Big-0 can take a nap and wake up to a happy world?
Economists don’t know anything either. Who do you think created this mess? Who do you think created the models that allowed for the out off control mortgage lending. Economists are some of the stupidest people on earth.
Tell me about it.
On-The-Job TRAINING IN THE WHITE HOUSE?????????
just great...
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It is titled “I will give you ice cream” and it comes from a third grade teacher from Nashville, TN
Who worries about “the cow” when it is all about the “Ice Cream”
She reports that the most eye-opening civics lesson she had was while teaching a third grade class this year. The Presidential election was heating up and some of the students showed an interest.
She decided that the class would have an election for class president. They would choose the nominees. They would have a campaign and the class would vote. To simplify the process, the candidates were nominated by other class members. They discussed what kinds of characteristics the student candidates should have. There were several nominations, and from those, Jamie and Olivia were picked to run for the top spot. The class had done a great job in their selections.
Both candidates were good kids! I though Jamie might have an advantage because he got lots of parental support. She had never seen Olivia's mother.
The day arrived when the candidates were to make their speeches; Jamie went first. He had specific ideas about how to make our class a better place. He ended by promising to do his very best. Everyone applauded. He sat down and Olivia came to the podium. Her speech was concise. She said, “if you will vote for me, I will give you ice cream”. She sat down. The class went wild. “Yes! Yes! We want ice cream”. She surely could say more, but she did not have to.
A discussion followed. How did she plan to pay for the ice cream? She wasn't sure. Would her parents buy it or would the class pay for it? She didn't know. The class really didn't care. All they were thinking about was the ice cream, Jamie was forgotten. Olivia won by a landslide.
Every time Barack Obama opened his mouth, he offered iced cream, and fifty-two percent of he people reacted like none year olds. They wanted ice cream. The other forty-eight percent of us know we're going to have to feed the cow and clean up the mess.
That is your civics lesson for the day!
What in the hell are you blathering about?
How in the world do you get “I’m a marxist” from my article?
Who let you out of that mental institution you’ve obviously been in?””
Please excuse my errant post. My comments were directed at Hussein obama, not you. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Please excuse me. Hussein is the marxist idiot to which I referred. I will endeavor to be more specific in the future.
"But I do play one in the White House."
My 401K is now a 200.5 Oy Vay.
The thing that drives me nuts is when conservatives throw liberals words and tactics back at them, we’re accused of being “partisan” and “creating division.”
How dare we throw up all the stuff Biden said that amounted to statements that Obama had no business being President? That’s just being divisive!!!
Btw, that is probably one of the few things Biden ever said in his life that was actually right.
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.
Other than smoking dope and acting like a ghetto punk ... is there anything that you are good at?
I’ve got this on my site at http://startthinkingright.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/media-frenzy-over-abc-democratic-debate-reveals-leftist-bias/
From Bernie Goldberg’s book Bias starting on page 21:
“Dan Rather introduced [CBS Washington correspondent Eric] Engberg’s piece with the standard stuff about how it would “look beyond the promises to the substance” of the Forbes flat tax…
Engberg’s voice covered pictures of Steve Forbes on the campaign trail. “Steve Forbes pitches his flat-tax scheme as an economic elixer, good for everything that ails us.”
Scheme? Elixer? What the hell kind of language is that, I [Goldberg] wondered. These were words that conjured up images of con artists, like Doctor Feelgood selling worthless junk out of the back of his wagon.
But that was just a little tease to get us into the tent. then Engberg interviewed three different tax experts. Every single one of them opposed the flat tax. Every single one! Where was the fairness and balance Rather was always preaching about? Wasn’t there any expert - even one - in the entire United States who thought the flat tax might work?
Of course there was. There was Milton Friedman and Merton Miller, both of the University of Chicago and both Nobel Prize winners in economics. There was James Buchanan of George Mason University, another Nobel laureate. There were also Harvey Rosen of Princeton, William Poole of Brown, and Robert Barro of Harvard. All of them were on the record as supporting the flat tax to one degree or another.
Engberg could have found a bunch of economists to support the flat tax, if he wanted to. But putting on a supporter of the flat tax would have defeated the whole purpose of the piece, which was to have a few laughs at Steve Forbes’ expense.
There was absolutely no way - not one chance in a million - that Engberg or Rather would have aired a flat-tax story with that same contemptuous tone if Teddy Kennedy or Hillary Clinton had come up with the idea.
But even if you opposed the flat tax, even if you thought it was a bad idea that helped only the wealthiest Americans - fat cats like Steve Forbes himself - what about simple journalistic fairness? What about presenting two sides? isn’t that what Rather was always saying CBS News was about: objectivity, fairness, balance?
And then Engberg crossed that fuzzy line that’s supposed to separate news from entertainment. He decided it was time to amuse his audience…
Which is why Eric Engberg decided to play David Letterman and do a takeoff of his Top Ten list.
“Forbes’ Number One Wackiest Flat-Tax Promise,” Engberg told the audience, is the candidate’s belief that it would give parents “more time to spend with their children and each other.”
Wacky? This was a perfectly acceptable word in the United States of Entertainment to describe, say, a Three Stooges movie. Or Hamlet, starring Jerry Lewis. Or My Fair Lady, with Chris Rock playing Professor Higgins.
But “wacky” seemed an odd word to describe a serious idea to overhaul America’s ten-trillion page tax code that enables lobbyists to donate tons of money to politicians who then use this same Byzantine tax code to hand out goodies to the very same special interests that just gave them all that money. If anything is “wacky,” it’s the current tax system, not an honest attempt to replace it with something new.
Besides, what Forbes meant is that since many Americans - not just the wealthy - would pay less tax under his plan, they might not have to work as many hours and might actually have more time to spend at home with their families. Maybe it’s true and maybe it isn’t, but is “wacky” the fairest and most objective way to describe it?
Can you imagine, in your wildest dreams, a network news reporter calling Hillary Clinton’s health care plan “wacky”? Can you imagine Dan Rather or any other major American news anchorman allowing it?
And, finally, the coup de grace, the knife to Steve Forbes’ throat as Engberg went on camera to end his story. The “on camera,” as we call it in the TV news business, is when the reporter gets to look the viewer in the eye and deliver a sermonette. This is when the reporter, if he hasn’t been slanting the news story up to this point, will often give you a little editorial just to make sure you know how you’re supposed to think about the subject at hand. Eric Engberg ended his little vaudeville act thus: “The fact remains: The flat tax is a giant, untested theory. One economist suggested, before we put it in, we should test it out someplace - like Albania.” Engberg flashed his signature smirk and signed off - “Eric Engberg, CBS News, Washington.”
There is junk science and junk bonds. This was junk journalism.
Goldberg continued…
“…The left routinely uses words like “scheme” instead of the more neutral “plan” to describe tax cuts that favor “the wrong people.” Sometimes they put the word “risky” before “scheme” to make it sound really scary. Al Gore did precisely that, about a hundred times a day, when he was running for president against George W. Bush. I understand why Al Gore and other liberals call something they don’t like a “scheme.” Politicians and partisans are allowed to do that. But should supposedly objective people like news reports, people like Eric Engberg, use that kind of loaded language? Should a journalistic enterprise like CBS News - which claims to stand for fairness and objectivity - allow words like “scheme” and “wacky” in what is supposed to be a straight news story about a legitimate candidate running for president of the United States?
Engberg’s piece - its strident, mocking tone, its lack of objectivity, its purposeful omission of anyone who supported the flat tax - was like a TV commercial paid for by Opponents of the Steve Forbes Flat Tax.
From top to bottom the Engberg piece was breathtaking in its lack of fairness. So how could CBS have put it on the air?
No, not a trained economist, but a trained con man who said he would “lower the seas and heal the earth.”
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