I accidentally DVR’d the President’s speech on Sunday night. I didn’t watch the speech itself, because I don’t watch any speeches these days, but I did catch Brian Williams’s (MSNBC) intro to the speech and it was an eye opener. Here’s my transcription of the intro with Williams’s verbal emphasis bolded:
President Obama has requested air time from the television networks tonight to speak from the East Room of the White House and tell the American people that unless the debt ceiling is raised the US will suffer incalculable damage and the economy will default. And in keeping with the back and forth nature of what has become a toxic debate in Washington, two minutes after the Presidents finish we will go to the Speaker of the House.
The “economy will default”? What the hell? And since when is the opposition response considered part of a “toxic” debate?
Note also the phrasing that turns the President’s expected assertions into statements of objective fact. He will “tell the American people that…” instead of something like, “he will make his case to the American people that…”
I can’t decide if this scares me, disgusts me or heartens me. It scares me to see how deep the major media are in the tank for the Democrats. It disgusts me that they continue to use public resources to promote their partisan agenda. However, it heartens me to see how incompetently they go about it.
“The economy will default”. Heh.
I am wondering if a default, or just the RISK of a default is already priced into the markets. As always, if I am asking these types of questions, the pros have already acted on them.
I think the market believe that a so-called “default” will have minimal effects overall. I imagine major federal vendors will get hit hard but social security checks etc will still got out. The fact of the matter is most of the economy does’t actually depend on the Federal government to operate. Those public and private interest who do depend on the Federal government will force a solution long before any negative effects will be felt by the vast majority of the economy.
the point is that the “economy” will default is silly. the fed gov’t might default, but that is not the economy
My daughter actually had the hardihood to watch the speech — and she was thinking that he looked like an Oopa-Loompa. He was actually so ‘orange’ that she thought he looked like a tall and talking Cheeto. Superficial, I know — but she said he really looked wierd.
These people have no idea of economics. A few questions, like those of the news babe on MSNBC when she asked a Congressman if he had a degree in economics, show how dumb these people are. It’s like asking movie stars to negotiate contracts. If anyone has forgotten (or never knew) , KIm Bassinger is an prime example.
Somebody could ask Brian Williams about the details but I suspect the producer would quickly go to a commercial.
They also don’t have any idea of history, which makes them a perfect match for the clueless president. Basically Obama acknowledged under Reagan the debt limit was raised about every 6 months, which is what he is being offered, but he wants it to be past the next election so it isn’t a topic. He cannot defend what he has done the past 2-1/2 years, and is as busy as a kitty burying it up hiding all the stuff that may contribute to his defeat next year. The exposure of his lack of ability and failure to meet his own stated goals are creating a panic for the left’s controlling nature.
William’s statement is just further proof that the MSM are nothing more than the Democrats/Obama’s propaganda arm.
I dated a journalism major while I was in engineering school.
All I can say is big tits are more of an asset in that field than big brains.
It is just the Journo-List 2.0 writ large. Today I read a piece by Megan McArdle at the ATLANTIC. Given where she writes, I did not expect anything approximating even handedness, although McArdle is far from as reality deprived as her former ATLANTIC colleague, Andrew Sullivan. But I was surprised, and not pleasantly.
The gist of her piece was that we are flirting with fiscal Armageddon if we do not raise the debt ceiling immediately. That there is a disconnect between Wall Street [who knows how bad it would be], but is failing to communicate the seriousness to Congress [read Republicans, as they are the only ones named] who are too dumb to understand how bad it would be.
There is no mention of the fact that any bill will have to be signed by the President, and that President has been issuing daily threats that he will veto anything that does not give him unlimited power to spend at will until after the election, and raises taxes to boot. There is no mention that he refuses to put forth ANY budget plan at all. [Or the 6 minute tragi-comic relief yesterday of his spokesman trying to claim that the failure to offer a plan was proof that there really was a plan and a good one, and a refusal to discuss anything but attacks on everybody else was proof that he was not playing politics with the issue.] Or that the Democrats in the Senate have failed for two years to do the Constitutionally mandated annual budget, and the Democrats in the House have not done so for over a year. Or that the Democrat’s Reid Plan in the Senate is apparently invisible; because while they are arguing that it should be adopted, even Democrats admit that no one has seen it.
No, according to McArdle, the sole problem is the ignorance and stubbornness of the Republicans in Congress who are going to doom us all because “…if the GOP somehow manages to force the Democrats to do everything their way, this will not secure our AAA; it will guarantee that we lose it, because it will show that we are currently unable to make the ugly bipartisan compromises that long-term budget balance requires …“. Translation: they will accept nothing less than Unconditional Surrender. Those are the terms that one gives to the enemies of one’s country. Of course, just today Harry Reid sent out a Tweet that TEA Party members were not Americans.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2011/07/harry-reid-tea-partiers-are-not-real-americans/
This is not going to end well.
Subotai Bahadur
Even after Obama changed his demands and threw a temper tantrum when they weren’t met, his acolytes still called him “the adult in the room.” Not only is Obama not being an adult, he’s not in the room. The plans that will be compromised and finally enacted are being drafted in Congress without him.