It's like a scene out of Dr. Strangelove, where the delusional General Ripper blames fluoridation of the water supply beginning in 1946 on the Commies.
Here's Obama yesterday, finally blaming Republicans, not Bush, which is a sort of progress, I guess, for losing the AAA credit rating, adding in the zinger that the debt-ceiling showdown in summer 2011 somehow was responsible also for net zero jobs created in August 2011, the first time that's happened since World War II. Boy, that report must have really rankled him to bring it up now, a lot more than losing the AAA credit rating. Who even remembers that?!
From the transcript of Obama's remarks yesterday, here:
So we’ve got to pay our bills. And Republicans in Congress have two choices here. They can act responsibly, and pay America’s bills, or they can act irresponsibly and put America through another economic crisis. But they will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy. The financial wellbeing of the American people is not leverage to be used. The full faith and credit of the United States of America is not a bargaining chip. And they better choose quickly, because time is running short.
The last time republicans in Congress even flirted with this idea, our AAA credit rating was downgraded for the first time in our history. Our businesses created the fewest jobs of any month in nearly the past three years, and ironically, the whole fiasco actually added to the deficit.
Got that? "The fewest jobs of any month in nearly the past three years." He's not referring to last month, December 2012. He's referring to August 2011, and trying to rewrite that history by blaming it on Republicans and couching it in the context of the last three years when the news reported August 2011 as a sensational first in the post-war period. That's how keenly Obama feels the sting of his lousy job creation record. He's the worst president for jobs in 65 years, and he knows it.
