Here the esteemable Victor Davis Hanson takes on Obama and the Debt Limit “Crisis”. He is less than impressed:
During the recent debt crisis, President Obama talked about the need for bipartisan compromise and, as in the past, he urged civility. Giving ground and engaging in polite discourse, of course, can be noble aims. But, like most one-eyed-jack politicians, Obama has rarely embraced the admirable qualities he advocates — a fact increasingly evident to a skeptical public.
In 2006, then-senator Obama voted against the Bush administration’s request to raise the debt ceiling — when the national debt was about 60 percent of what it is now. He did not show up for similar votes in 2007 and 2008. In that regard, Senate majority leader Harry Reid opposed every request when Republicans were in control of the Senate to raise the debt ceiling. Of course, such an unthinking party-line voter is exactly the sort of partisan senator or congressman that President Obama now deplores.
But that was Different. Teh Awful Republicans were in control then. They really don’t know how to waste money the way the Democrats do, though they appeared willing to try and learn. Still, not an auspicious start for Obama. Do as I say, not as I do seems to be the First Commandment for Politicians, regardless of their Party affiliation. He goes on:
In fact, in 2007 the National Journal found that Obama’s voting record was the most partisan in the entire U.S. Senate — farther to the hard-line left than the Senate’s only self-described socialist, Bernie Sanders, and more predictably partisan than even the most consistently conservative senator that year, Jim DeMint.
Damn the Senate for recording his votes! Obama had worked hard not to leave any kind of paper trail behind him, but when you are the Senator from an important State like Illinois, you can’t just vote “Present” all the time. And now that he is President, Obama can’t hide from his public statements:
After the tragic shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D., Ariz.), President Obama made yet another call for a new civility, urging us all to tone down our partisan rhetoric. But slash-and-burn talk is unfortunately the mother’s milk of politics — and no one knows that better than Chicago politician and apparent amnesiac Barack Obama, who as a state legislator, U.S. senator, and president has always excelled in the use of uncivil rhetoric and personal invective.
During the last three years, in almost every debate — deficit reduction, taxes, illegal immigration — Obama has smeared the motives of his political opponents.
Nor was Biden’s remark calling Tea Party activists “Terrorists” the first time such analogies were used by Democrats. Consider the following:
Obama’s partisan rhetoric has always been rough. He called his political adversaries on taxes and the debt “hostage takers” who engaged in “hand-to-hand combat,” and needed to be relegated to the proverbial back seat. Obama even suggested that AIG executives were metaphorical terrorists: “They’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger.”
The outrage that would follow a prominant Republican doing the equivilent would be monumental. From Obama, such rhetoric generates crickets. Frankly, I am more concerned about our misplaced civility, than I am Obama’s uncivil tone. Politics is War. Act accordingly. As always, VDH is a great read, and spot on in his observations.
Tags: Debt Limit, VDH, Victor Davis Hanson
