Monday, August 8, 2011

Damage Control

Having just been downgraded, the Obama administration is in full damage control mode. They seem to think that it's easier to control the politics than the debt.

When S & P downgraded the nation’s credit rating it was giving the administration a failing grade.

You know what happens when a child comes home with a report card containing a failing grade. He goes straight into damage control mode.

The teacher is an idiot; she has no right to judge me; the system is unfair; I’m too good for school; the dog ate my homework; she is not even my teacher.

It isn’t just limited to administration satraps like David Axelrod, who yesterday called it the Tea Party downgrade.

Obama supporter Warren Buffett was howling in pain that the nation deserves a AAAA credit rating. And Paul Krugman denounced S & P, for its past errors, declaring that it had no right to be so judgmental.

On the other side Harvard Professor Kenneth Rogoff, no Tea Party Activist he, declared that S & P was a generous grader. AA+ was a bit high. It should have graded the nation AA.

In other news, it turns out that the executives at S & P gave much money to Democratic candidates than Republican candidates. In that they resembled the greedy Wall Street bankers who are supposed to be behind the financial crisis. They were among the most enthusiastic and generous supporters of Barack Obama.

John Hinderaker revealed the intellectual vacuity of this damage control with an analogy from civil court.

Lawyers call it “pleading the alternative.” Hinderaker explains it, thusly: “... when sued for borrowing a neighbor’s pot and breaking it, the defendant answers that he never borrowed the pot; the pot was never broken; and the pot was already broken when he borrowed it.”

Translated into political terms, this argues that the Obama administration was never really in charge of the budget, that the United States is fully creditworthy, and that the federal budget was broken when they inherited it.

Hinderaker argues that they will never be able to sell the argument. It’s not only ignorant; it’s desperate. Most people can smell desperation. When they do, they reject it outright.

2 comments:

Dennis said...

There are a couple of things I remind myself when I begin to think I am really good and smarter than the average person:
1. One is never as smart as they think nor are others as dumb as one thinks they are
2. When you seek to deceive the only person you deceive is yourself.
Both of these ideas fit much of the Obama and Democrat strategy.
There comes a time, as Rousseau stated, that one begins to realize how little they know. One can have all kinds of education, professional certifications and life experiences, but when it comes to knowledge and wisdom one is still a primitive or barbarian. Those that follow will think of us in exactly those terms just as we do of those who came before us.
At some point if one is truly a leader then one will recognize that good ideas come from a lot of people, no matter what side of the political spectrum.

Dennis said...

Political speeches and complements are a lot alike. They should be given only when needed/deserved. Otherwise they begin to lose their value as a motivator. They lose their effectiveness.
When even the members of the "kneepad" press start questioning the myth of Obama the "One" has a real growing problem.