Lamest Defense of Obama

IBD Editorials

The Lamest Defense of Obama Yet

 Posted 08/28/2012 06:50 PM ET

Politics: Liberals now say the president can't be blamed for the lousy recovery because he couldn't get his agenda enacted even when Democrats held a supermajority in Congress. 
And we should be confident in his leadership?
On the stump, Mitt Romney has started a new and very effective line of attack against Obama. "He got every piece of legislation he wanted passed, and it didn't work," Romney told Politico this week. "I think (voters) want someone who has a different record, and I do."

Paul Ryan used the same attack line in his first speech as Romney's VP pick. "No one disputes President Obama inherited a difficult situation," Ryan said. "And, in his first two years, with his party in complete control of Washington, he passed nearly every item on his agenda. But that didn't make things better."
The argument cuts to the core of Obama's claim that Republicans have stymied his ability to get anything done. Which is why the left is so intent on squashing it, even at the expense of making Obama look inept.

Talking Points Memo, an influential lefty opinion site, called Romney's claim "mostly ahistorical" and went on to say Republicans "used a record number of filibusters in the Senate to weaken — and in some cases thwart — large pieces of (Obama's) agenda." Well, not exactly.

TPM says, for example, that the Obama stimulus "had to be scaled down because (of) a GOP filibuster." But the final $830 billion stimulus bill Obama signed was almost identical in size to the one passed in the House, where the minority has no ability to filibuster.
And Obama then got another $3 billion for his Cash for Clunkers, a follow-on $17.6 billion "jobs" bill and $26 billion in additional state aide.
He also got Dodd-Frank, the auto bailouts, "green" energy loans, a student loan takeover and of course, ObamaCare.

TPM complains that "Republican filibusters on health care reform ate up nearly a year of the Democrats' legislative time." So what? Democrats got the health care bill they wanted, using a series of parliamentary tricks to ram it through.
The real problem for Obama is that none of his policies lived up to its billing. Instead of 4% economic growth, more middle-class opportunities, lower insurance premiums and a thriving "green" energy sector, we have a stagnant economy, declining wages, rising insurance and energy prices, and $5 trillion more debt.
But let's say liberals were right, and the Republicans did manage to thwart "large pieces" of Obama's agenda. What does that say about Obama? Reagan, after all, was able to get his agenda through a Congress dominated by the other party.

Does the left really want to argue that Obama was such a pathetic leader that he couldn't get his policies enacted even with huge Democratic majorities in the House and Senate? And that because of this we should give him a second term?
No wonder liberals only want to talk about Todd Akin.