One snippet of Obama’s speech in Galesburg, Illinois is getting left out of the TV news packages for perhaps obvious reasons. Obama announced yesterday that reporters are with him in thinking his socialist plans are “good ideas” and “sound great,” but Republicans will never back them.
This might also make it sound like there’s zero overlap between “reporters” and “Republicans.” This clip was only seen live on the cable networks on Wednesday afternoon:
It’s interesting, in the run-up to this speech, a lot of reporters say that, well, Mr. President, these are all good ideas, but some of you’ve said before; some of them sound great, but you can't get those through Congress. Republicans won’t agree with you.
And I say, look, the fact is there are Republicans in Congress right now who privately agree with me on a lot of the ideas I’ll be proposing. I know because they’ve said so. But they worry they’ll face swift political retaliation for cooperating with me.
Liberal reporters love telling politicians which ideas are great, and which ones stink. Back in 1999, former Newsweek reporter Jacob Weisberg appreciated John McCain's willingness to consider his ideas on a school-voucher plan. "When McCain flatters you, it doesn't feel automatic or calculated. He truly likes us journalists."
On his show Tuesday night, radio host Mark Levin played some of the just plain bizarre claims Obama made in his remarks that beg for media “fact check” brigades, such as how Republicans “shift the topic to 'out-of-control government spending' – despite the fact that we've cut the deficit by nearly half as a share of the economy since I took office.” He also claimed “our deficits are falling at the fastest rate in 60 years.”
As he took credit for deficit reduction, the president also insisted that the most recent deficit-reduction tool, the sequester, is horrid and must be scrapped:
...we've got folks who’ve insisted on leaving in place a meat cleaver called the sequester that's cost jobs. It's harmed growth. It's hurt our military. It's gutted investments in education and science and medical research. (Applause.)
Almost every credible economist will tell you it's been a huge drag on this recovery. And it means that we're underinvesting in the things that this country needs to make it a magnet for good jobs.
Liberal journalists see nothing bizarre in Obama always feeling the government has “underinvested” with taxpayer funds.
