First Conservative - Political Humor and Obamatudes

Having learned the lesson that pushing the Secretary to testify before Congress only reinforces the view that the administration has no understanding of a free economy, Team Obama chose friendlier turf for their star economic spokesperson by choosing Meet the Press with David Gregory.   Among the more interesting revelations was Geithner’s admonition that individuals must “learn to live within our means.”

Gregory allowed Geithner to coast through a series of softball questions free of meaningful follow up.  Platitudes and diatribes about the government having to do something about the economic crisis went unqualified and undefined.  Concluding the interview, Gregory asked “In the long run, is this crisis necessary for this economy?” 

The bright side for Democrats is that the crisis is being ginned up to ensure future Democrat control over formerly free institutions.  Banking, auto manufacturing, insurance, health care, energy, and on and on… will be consolidated under Democrat control with the willing consent of uninformed voters and an uncurious media.   Answering this question, though, Geithner simply responded that we all have to “learn to live within our means.”   Gregory failed to ask that if the crisis was necessary, aren’t all recessions necessary from time to time to correct market imbalances?  Gregory concluded his obligation by failing to ask why “living within our means” does not apply to government policy.   

Even weak journalistic effort would be welcomed by a public that is seriously and rightfully concerned that Obama misread his election as a mandate to nationalize the economy.  Focusing instead on Geithner’s statement that living within our means would just mean that individuals should not take on debt or other obligations that they cannot meet, Gregory nodded and let the issue drop.

An active journalist would have asked why then if living within our means is such a good idea, why does the federal government insist on a running up a record level of debt?  If it is good for individuals to build a solid economic foundation by not overborrowing and overspending,  why does this not apply to governmental institutions?  And after incredible increase in debt levels, why does the administration continue to state that it will “cut the deficit in half” when every single person that can add and subtract knows this is impossible given the level of spending commitments contained in the Stimulus and Budget packages?

In the end, Gregory failed to pursue these lines of questions, preferring to listen to the administration’s wunderkind explain why the nation will be better off if government takes over key pieces of the economy.  Interestingly, the Meet the Press brass determined that it wouldn’t be totally fair to let Geithner have the floor for the entire program and therefore dredged up an inarticulate and un-passionate conservative spokesperson in Arizona Senator John McCain.  If – as most of the media believes – that Rush Limbaugh is the spokesperson for the GOP – why not bring him on instead of McCain?  The obvious answer is that Limbaugh would make both Geithner and Gregory look terrible by providing reasoned examples of why the Geithner/Obama plan is going to fail.  NBC also doesn’t want to keep pumping up Limbaugh’s audience and as Meet the Press is their show, NBC is not going to let anyone make them appear to be uninformed, uncurious and carrying the water for the Obama administration – even though they are.

When Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner begins a statement with the phrase “you have to understand,” most investors hit the sell button on their Wall Street web accounts. 

Geithner on Meet the Press this morning revealed again that the Obama administration has no real plan to fix the economy.  In the ‘duh’ statement of the year, when asked what the core reason for banking crisis was, Geithner responded that banks “took on too much risk.” Meet the Press Interviewer David Gregory seemed stunned enough to avoid the obvious follow up questions that should have run something like “what conditions led to banks assuming too much risk?”  and “wouldn’t it make better sense to fix the reasons that banks took on too much risk before spending  trillions of dollars or taking them over?”  Instead, Geithner enjoyed smooth sailing and a Sunday walk in the park.

Following the tried and thus far true Obama interview methodology, Geithner repeatedly used the reasoning that in response to the current recession, the government had to do something.  Even dragging out Obama’s favorite word “inherited,” Geithner pushed blame to previous administrations for existence of the current crisis.   Gregory jumped into Geithner’s corner by dutifully failing to press Geithner with questions about the specifics of what “do something” actually means besides spending an outrageous sum of money.  Most importantly, Gregory avoided the single most important question – why will the Obama plan make things better and not worse?   In fairness, Gregory did try to raise this question – sort of -  but fell into the Obama trap by allowing Geithner to take up the airtime with diatribes on how bad the situation was and how great is the need for action now.   Geithner never actually answered the question nor was he pressed by serious journalistic effort to reveal specifics.

Gregory made a routine effort to ask why Geithner and Obama had expressed outrage over the AIG bonuses when in fact they were the ones that created the bonus provision in the first place.  By inserting bonus language via the Dodd amendent to the Stimulus package, Geithner and Obama specifically approved the bonus plan.  Obama and Geithner then led the chorus of outrage against the bonuses when it became public knowledge.  Gregory gently pressed the issue, but again allowed Geithner to suck up the airtime with a speech on how bad the economy is and why the government has to take drastic action now. 

Perhaps it is beneficial that Gregory didn’t pin Geithner down on his plans.  The market opens in less than 24 hours.   On most previous instances of Geithner’s previous public Q&A sessions, the people that invest their own money are reminded that the current administration has no clue regarding how an economy actually works on Main Street.   They watched as Geithner was allowed to deliver platitudes instead of answers.   

In previous instances, the market tanks when Geithner talks.  When Geithner talks, people sell.