Budget talks: This is getting nasty

From Maureen Dowd column today:

Obama’s response on Monday to Friday’s Standard & Poor’s downgrade and to the 22 Navy Seal commandos and 8 other soldiers killed by a Taliban rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan was once more too little, too late. It was just like his belated, ineffectual response on the BP oil spill and his reaction to the would-be Christmas Day bomber; it took him three days on vacation in Hawaii to speak about the terrorist incident when the country was scared about national security, and then he spent the next week callously shuttling from the podium to the golf course.

His inability to grab a microphone and spontaneously assuage Americans’ fears is strange. If the American servicemen had died on a Monday, he wouldn’t have waited until Wednesday to talk about it. He doesn’t like the bully pulpit, just the professor’s lectern.

After failing to interrupt his Camp David weekend to buck up the country on one of its worst days in history, he tacked on his condolences for the soldiers’ families to his economic pep talk, in what had to be the most inept oratorical segue of his presidency.

 

There are people who still care what Maureen Dowd says?

 

Does not matter who wrote it. What counts is how accurate it is.

 

Meanwhile, America has to wait on a jobs bill as the House finishes up its six-week vacation.

 

Since it's Maureen Dowd and she is no longer an opinion-maker but rather a semi-weekly regurgitation of what's being said and written Out There, it is easily dismissed.

 

What exactly do people expect from a "jobs bill"?

Are we really expecting Congress to "create" jobs? Have they been successful at this in the past?

 

Congress is waiting for Obama's ideas.

 

The WPA built some really nice cabins not far from here. Still in use.

 

Well, I guess Congress could "create jobs" by lowering taxes, right?

 

Many, many words. Not answering the question I asked. Good stuff.

So let's do it again.

1. Clearly, in your "finger point" rant, you're not talking about John Edwards or Barack Obama or even any of the people on this board, because we all, I'm guessing, pay income taxes. You're talking about the people who don't pay any income tax. So I asked an apparently stupid question: How do you know?

2. You're right. I attributed the line of "let THEM pay for it" as an equivalent of soak the rich. I think it's a pretty good equivalent, personally, especially since you trot out the phrase "class warfare" later on.

3. You presented what I believe to be a ludicrous notion: The magical transformation of poor, finger-pointing folks on the dole suddenly brightening into austere fiscal model citizens if they were to pay income taxes. It seems hilariously, stupendously contradictory to me that an income tax - in other words, less money - would somehow make them sympathetic to the richest 5% of Americans in our country. But you're the one that made the claim, not me. Explain.

 

There was a time when freshmen Senators were expected to keep their mouths shut for a period of months, sometimes years, before taking the Senate floor and speaking. I'm sure Mitch loves being paired with Paul (who gave his maiden speech on Feb. 2, less than a month after being sworn in) and maybe is wishing he could have Bunning back.

 

No, but they could create a positive climate for job creation.