Sometimes one reads an article and the first thing that pops to mind is “Could there be a bigger douche-bag or douche-bags in the nation?” This is exactly where I am this morning with the BS that was published in the Wall Street Journal by self described Democratic pollsters Patrick Caddell and Douglas Schoen.
They are out there making a case based on lies that President Obama, should he really have the interests of the nation at heart, should not seek a second term because if he does it will require an negative election campaign so vitriolic that if he wins he would be unable to govern.
This whole specious column completely ignores the Republicans determined sabotage of the economy masquerading as principled intransigence. Schoen and Caddell say:
Put simply, it seems that the White House has concluded that if the president cannot run on his record, he will need to wage the most negative campaign in history to stand any chance. With his job approval ratings below 45% overall and below 40% on the economy, the president cannot affirmatively make the case that voters are better off now than they were four years ago. He—like everyone else—knows that they are worse off.
Now, I am not a fan of all the president’s policy choices and some of his failures are galling indeed (especially the failure on torture accountability under the law) but on the economy what these two are saying is a flat lie.
Maybe today’s pain washes away the facts of 2008-2009 but when the president took office we were losing jobs at upward of 800,000 a month, the domestic auto industry was on the verge of annihilation and the stock market was in free fall.
Today, through the stimulus bill and the auto industry bail out, the economy is adding jobs and has been the entire year. Are there enough? Hell no! But there is a steady increase of the number of employed people. The domestic auto industry is thriving and while it doesn’t really help most of us, the stock market is more than 2,000 points off its low in the economic collapse of 2008.
Put simply, in deference to Caddell and Schoen, they are lying when they say we are worse off.
But that is not even the butt of this particular joke, the whole lie about the Obama economic accomplishments and who is to blame that there is not even more progress is just the set up. Who do these two “worthies” think should step in? Who is the person they think will be able to work with Republicans to get sometime done? Sec. State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
I know.
I guess that if you are a nominal Democrat who is unwilling to see the Republican strategy of obstruction and sabotage for what it is, then you might just be deluded enough to think that the Sec. State would have a better chance of working with the Tea Party hostage Republican Party. As if Vince Foster would not be the first and last words out of all their mouths all the time.
There are a couple of interesting twists to the very fact of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum taking to the pages of the Wall Street Journal with this kind of crap. First off it is not the only place today that you will find a Republican leaning publication calling for President Obama to not seek re-election.
Michael Catalini over at the National Journal is making a big deal of this article too. That says to me that it is going to be the Republican talking point this week. They needed something to distract from the fact that the Republicans on the so-called Super-Committee were so intransigent that they would not even consider a penny in new revenue and thus sunk the committee from the start.
Look for this meme to be repeated ad nauseum by the Right Wing Echo Chamber.
But the very meme shows something that makes this Democrat feel pretty good. Think about how desperate the establishment Republicans have to be to float this idea. They know that as the super-nova that is the Gingrich front-runner show fades, there is less and less chance that there is anyone in the Republican field who can actually get the nomination other than Mitt Romney.
Seeing their party going into a general election with a candidate that most of the party does not want looks like electoral disaster to them. And they are right. So what is the only chance they have? Why trying to get the Democratic President to say he won’t seek a second term, but doing it so late that there would be no chance for an orderly nomination process.
It is a pretty pathetic when you get right down to it. But then Caddell and Schoen are pretty pathetic too. Everyone needs steady work, but there is some work that corrodes your person so badly that you should never consider doing it. Being the Democrats who don’t like the Democratic Party on Fox “News” and in the Wall Street Journal probably pays pretty well, but I don’t think I could do that job if I were starving in the street.
So let’s hear it for two world class douche-bags, Schoen and Caddell. If nothing else their time is running out as they are infected by the know-nothingism of the News Corp brand. With ideas like this they will soon be relegated to the world of Glenn Beck and Alex Jones. And good riddance!
The floor is yours.