I Second That!

Here's Paul Krugman on Barack Obama's post mid-term election news conference:

Urk. I just gave up on the presidential press conference. When Obama declared that Americans rejected Democrats in part because “We were in such a hurry to get things done that we didn’t change how things got done,” I checked out.

Nobody cares about this stuff — they care about results. Nobody really cares about earmarks; they’re just code for spending less (less on somebody else, of course, not me). Nobody cares about civility and bipartisanship, which in practice are code for Democrats giving in to Republican demands. Nobody cares about parliamentary maneuvers: we can argue about the role of health reform in the election, but I bet not one voter in 50 knows or cares that it was passed using reconciliation (as were the sacred Bush tax cuts we must, must retain).

If Obama had used fancy footwork and 2 AM sessions to pass a big public works program, and this program had brought unemployment down, Republicans would be screaming about the process — and Democrats would have comfortably held control of Congress. Remember the voter backlash against the way Medicare drug benefits were passed? Neither do I.

Oh, by the way — nobody cares about the deficit, either.

I felt the same way. I watched about 10 minutes and decided the guy had nothing to say. Worse, it convinced me that he learned nothing from the election results. He is going to do "more of the same" and the Republicans are going to hang him out to dry, they will let his corpse twist in the wind until the 2012 elections, then they will turn loose the demons from hell -- yet again! -- and win big in those elections on the theme of "the Democrat's wouldn't play nice and let us get moving to solve America's problems". Yep... it's the big lie technique and it worked wonderfully well for Germany in the 1930s/40s and it has been working wonderfully well for the last 10 years in the US.

I sure hope some Democrat with iron for a backbone is busy launching his presidential bid. Somebody has to unseat Obama before he ensures a Republican majority in both houses along with winning the Presidency (and of course they already hold the Supreme Court). The US is being duck-walked into banana republic status.

Why do I care? I live just north of the border. Canada is the mouse that has to "accomodate" the American elephant. When you sneeze we catch a cold. Your economic crash took down our economy despite out sound banking system, solid housing sector, and generally sound business sector. We pay the price for your egregious political mis-steps. It hurts! You aren't even aware of how you can make life miserable for us by your ridiculous politics.