President Obama’s Rolling Stone interview isn’t very illuminating. In it, the president robotically spits out canned talking points to an interviewer – left-wing historian Douglas Brinkley – who never bothers to press him on an issue, call him on any of his false claims or ask any genuinely probing questions. As we have seen with his paucity of press conferences and frequent trips to talk shows, the president prefers these kind of relaxed environments.
But sometimes such an environment can be revealing in it own way. Consider this passage:
So what I’m absolutely sure about is that we’ve got the better argument. And Governor Romney understands that. It’s the reason why, after a year and a half of campaigning on plans that very clearly were going to involve $5 trillion worth of tax cuts, he’s trying to fog up the issues, because he knows that the American people aren’t buying what he’s selling. (Emphasis added.)
What is striking it isn’t just that Obama repeats the bogus $5 trillion tax cut claim – something even his own campaign admits isn’t true – but his flat assertion that Romney knows that the Democratic economic plan is better.
It is one thing for him say that Romney is wrong. You cannot hardly expect him to say otherwise. But it is quite a different thing for Obama to say that in Romney’s heart he knows that he is wrong on the economic issue. You have to be a real narcissist to say that.
