Everything good that happens while liberals are governing is due to their wise policies, while everything bad that happens is due to bad luck. Conversely, everything good that happens while conservatives are governing is due to good luck, while everything bad that happens is due to their terrible policies. Sounds preposterous, right? But this is exactly what The New York Times and President Obama want you to believe.
In Decorah, Iowa, yesterday Obama took full credit for stabilizing the U.S. economy after the 2008 financial crisis. “We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again,” Obama said. So then why is the economy struggling now? “But over the last six months we’ve has a run of bad luck,” Obama said. So, Obama wants us to believe that everything positive that happens in this country is due to his magnificent leadership. But if things go wrong, do not blame him. It’s just a case of bad luck.
For The New York Times, the exact opposite is true of Gov. Rick Perry’s record in Texas. The Times begrudgingly acknowledges that “at least one-third of the jobs created nationwide since the recession ended” were created in Texas, that “the state’s economy is growing about twice as fast as the national rate,” and that “home prices have remained stable even as much of the country has seen sharp declines.” But absolutely none of this can possibly be due to Perry’s leadership as governor: “Economists as well as Perry skeptics suggest that Mr. Perry stumbled into the Texas miracle. They say that the governor has essentially put Texas on autopilot for 11 years, and it was the state’s oil and gas boom — not his political leadership — that kept the state afloat.”
But while The Times is more than willing to chalk up all that is good in Texas to luck, all that is bad has to be Perry’s fault: “A long-term hollowing out of its prospects because of deep cuts to education spending, low rates of investment in research and development, and a disparity in the job market that confines many blacks and Hispanics to minimum-wage jobs without health insurance.”
Maybe Obama and The NYT are right: Maybe the American people are ready to believe that liberal policies always succeed unless they’re unlucky and that conservative policies always fail unless good luck intervenes. That could happen. The alternative is that Obama is about to become a one-term president.
Around the Bigs
The Wall Street Journal, On Midwest Bus Tour, Obama Jabs at GOP: On his taxpayer-paid bus trip through the Midwest, Obama repeatedly accused Republicans of putting party before country by not rubber stamping his agenda. Obama even used Sen. John McCain’s losing 2008 campaign slogan, “Country First.”
The Washington Examiner, Obama: I reversed recession until ‘bad luck’ hit: When he wasn’t blaming Republicans for the bad economy, Obama was blaming bad luck. “We had reversed the recession, avoided a depression, gotten the economy moving again,” Obama told a crowd in Decorah, Iowa. “But over the last six months we’ve had a run of bad luck.” Obama blamed he Arab Spring uprisings, the tsunami in Japan, and the European debt crises for his economic troubles.
USA Today, Obama on health care plan: It’s ‘Obama cares’: Obama seemingly embraced the name many critics have been using to describe his signature domestic accomplishment yesterday. “I have no problem with folks saying ‘Obama cares,’”Obama said in Cannon Falls, Minn. “I do care. If the other side wants to be the folks who don’t care, that’s fine with me. But, yeah, I do care about families who have been struggling because of crushing health care costs.”
The Hill, Obama to automakers: ‘You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks’: “You can’t just make money on SUVs and trucks,” Obama said during his Cannon Falls, Minnesota stop yesterday. “There is a place for SUVs and trucks, but as gas prices keep on going up, you have got to understand the market,” Obama, who only briefly ran two car companies, instructed the rest of the auto sector.
The Washington Post, On mortgage rates, Obama wants proposal for how government can keep big role: Obama has directed aides to develop a plan that would keep the federal government heavily involved in the housing market, including possible lead roles for the failed mortgage funding giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Gallup, Obama’s Weekly Job Approval at 40%, Lowest of Administration: Obama’s job approval rating dropped to 40 percent last week, the lowest weekly average of his administration. Last week was also the first time Obama’s three-day rolling average fell below 40 percent, to 39 percent.
Campaign 2012
Perry: Campaigning in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Texas Gov. Rick Perry said it would be a “treasonous” act if Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “prints more money between now and the election.” Perry was reportedly referring to the possibility that the Fed would begin another round of asset purchases from financial institutions, a.k.a. QE3.
Perry II: Unlike President Bush, Perry has already shown he is capable of admitting he made a mistake. Interviewed on Des Moines-based WHO radio, Perry said this about his decision to mandate that teenage girls receive the HPV vaccine: “That particular issue is one that I readily stand up and say I made a mistake on. I listened to the legislature, they said that was not going to occur, and I agreed with their decision. I don’t always get it right, but I darn sure listen.”
Perry III: The Los Angeles Times is the latest paper to accuse Perry of using government to reward his campaign donors. The LAT reports, “Many of the GOP presidential candidate’s mega-donors have won hefty contracts or appointments. Perry’s aides vigorously dispute that any got special perks.”
Righty Playbook
In The Wall Street Journal, Michael Barone writes that the Midwest economic model has failed: “Adversarial unionism is one reason the Midwest slumped. It turns out that the 1970 assembly line, with union shop stewards always poised to shut it down, was not the highest stage of human economic development.”
At The Corner, John J. Miller makes the case for and against Paul Ryan running: “The case for Ryan running: In politics, and especially in presidential politics, you can’t choose your moment. It chooses you. “There is a tide in the affairs of men,” etc. This is Ryan’s moment. The case against Ryan running: Conservatives need him to remain the most important Republican in the House. Failing in the presidential arena would diminish his influence inside the chamber and with the public.”
The Heritage Foundation‘s Rob Bluey finds many factual errors in The New York Times hit piece on House Government Reform and Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif.
Lefty Playbook
ThinkProgress blares “Rick Perry Questions Obama’s Patriotism” and posts video of Perry saying, “I dunno, you need to ask him,” after a reporter asked Perry if he was suggesting that Obama didn’t love this country.
Writing in The New Republic, American Enterprise Institute scholar Norman Ornstein advises Obama on “how to win when you’re unpopular” by learning from President Truman.
The Washington Post‘s Sarah Kliff identifies four reasons why has the highest percentage of uninsured people in the U.S.
