OPINION:
On Aug. 15, President Obama announced his latest campaign gimmick, which he believes will make him look like Harry S. Truman running against a “do-nothing Congress” - with a twist: It allows Mr. Obama to avoid responsibility for his high unemployment numbers.
“I’ll be putting forward … a very specific plan to boost the economy, to create jobs and to control our deficit. And my attitude is get it done. … And if they don’t get it done, then we’ll be running against a Congress that isn’t doing anything for the American people and the choice will be very stark and very clear,” Mr. Obama said to the unappreciative Midwestern rogues during his flyover-country bus tour just prior to jetting off to “the Vineyard,” where a man of his effete charm can be better appreciated.
The twist is a trap for Republicans. If they refuse to allow him his latest stimulus bill, launched in a Thursday speech, then he thinks he can blame Republicans for his bad economy. Mr. Obama might as well have said, “If they don’t vote for my jobs bill, then I am not responsible for the unemployment rate. They are.” Of course, should his “jobs” bill pass the House of Representatives, it will - just like his other stimulus bills - provide financing for his re-election by putting money into the pockets of his supporters, banana republic style.
It is not a particularly clever strategy, but it is one the Democratic militia in the “mainstream media” can work with. Savvy political observers will see right through this scheme, but by the time the media are done explaining it to 100 million voters, it will sound more like Republicans attempting to sabotage Mr. Obama by not letting him have his plan that would “rescue” average Americans and put them back to work. They will sell Mr. Obama’s plan as a cure for unemployment if only those wicked Republicans, who really just want to see the president fail, would go along with it.
Mr. Obama’s plan seems also designed to get him out of another commitment he made nearly three years ago: “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there is going to be a one-term proposition,” Mr. Obama said in an interview with NBC in February 2009. The GOP can help him keep his promise by responding to his latest stimulus bill with this offer: “Mr. Obama, with the unemployment rate currently at 9.1 percent, we will pass your jobs bill if you agree to withdraw from the race for president if the unemployment rate hasn’t dropped below 7.8 percent one year from now.”
The unemployment rate is above 9 percent right now, but when Mr. Obama took office it was at 7.8 percent. This strategy will not only accentuate the fact that unemployment under Mr. Obama has gone up despite his profligate spending, but it also will put him into the same trap that he attempted to set for Tea Party Republicans who have tried to put the brakes on his mad spending spree.
Mr. Obama would never accept such an agreement, but this counteroffer from House Republicans would allow them to expose him as a hypocrite and his claims as bogus. If he has a plan that would, as he puts it, “create jobs” and help the American people, why won’t he stake his re-election on its effectiveness? Tea Party Republicans can ride this all the way to the election, pointing out that he doesn’t believe in the efficacy of his own plans and all he has to offer people suffering in his economy are political tricks to help himself get re-elected. It also shows that no matter how great his plan is and how many people he says it will help, it is not worth risking his re-election to see it implemented. In other words, keeping his job as president is more important to him than helping the middle class, the very middle class he claims he is running for re-election to help.
Once Mr. Obama’s cloak of compassion has unraveled, independent voters will see him the way the rest of us always have: as a power-seeking narcissist enabled by the liberal media.
Scott Wheeler is a former television producer and author of “Shadow Government: What Obama Doesn’t Want You to Know About His Czars” (Capitol Media Group, 2010). He is also founder of the National Republican Trust PAC.
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