Obama’s speaking style has always included a heavy reliance on an “it-is-because-I-say-it-is” philosophy. For instance, he started off his press conference by officially pronouncing a decidedly unclosed Gitmo, closed:
But my favorite moment of the night was this response to a question about how he’ll conduct himself as a chief shareholder for mortgage giants and car companies.
No? It’s hard, at this point, for the president to leave me speechless at his audacity, but I think I actually jumped to my feet, laptop in hand, when he said this. I later had to run downstairs to the basement to pick up my lower jaw bone, which would have descended further had it not been for the reinforced concrete floor. The president Wednesday admonished his critics not to “play games and pretend that the reason [for the deficit] is because of the Recovery Act.” I would ask him to cut out this helpful graphic from the Washington Post about the growth of the deficit on his watch and into the future as a reminder not to “play games” with us about his affinity for growing government.
