That blue pill the president keeps bringing up — is it an anti-depressant that leads to thoughts of political suicide? And are they all taking it at the White House this week?
Consider:
The Gates controversy. President Obama now realizes that he made a huge mistake by saying police officers in Cambridge, Mass., acted “stupidly” in arresting Professor Henry Gates. After his embarrassing, rambling, non-apology apology, the White House set up a Thursday meeting between Gates and the arresting officer, Sgt. Jim Crowley. Politico’s Mike Allen writes: “The White House was anxious to resolve the issue so it would quit dominating the news.” Which is why they are stretching it out into a two-week story…?
Saving money: The President promised on Wednesday that he will not let his health insurance bill increase the deficit, even going so far as to mention his Medicare Panel plan (IMAC) on Wednesday as something “every expert out there” agrees will produce major cuts in medical costs. No sooner has he said it than the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office releases a letter stating that IMAC will save only $2 billion, or even less, through 2019.
Saving money, II: Peter Orszag, Obama’s budget director, released a new three-page memo yesterday proudly announcing plans to save $265 million (yes, with an ‘M’) over ten years. Cost reductions come from such innovative measures as not painting government trucks and, apparently, pushing federal employees to use less paper and drink less water on the job. Orszag will have to write 901 more memos exactly like it if he wants to cover the still-unpaid portion of Obama’s health care bill. (To think of it another way, the savings described in the memo pay for about 12 hours of stimulus spending, even at the current slow rate.)
That Wednesday presser: The president blamed America’s health care cost problems on doctors who remove kids’ tonsils out of greed. The press conference, which addressed none of the troubling aspects of health care reform, went so poorly that Senate Democrats opted immediately afterward not to vote on a health measure until after the August recess. Senators are now putting a bill together without reference to the Obama administration — a stripped-down plan that doesn’t include the employer mandate (on which he campaigned) or the public option that his base demands.
Psychoanalyzing Russia: Vice President Joe Biden decides to “reset” relations with Russia by putting the entire country on the couch and describing it as a disturbed bully with serious insecurity issues. “Russia has to make some very difficult, calculated decisions,” Biden told The Wall Street Journal. “They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they’re in a situation where the world is changing before them and they’re clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable…It’s a very difficult thing to deal with, loss of empire.” Russians are accusing Biden of reverting to Bush-era rhetoric, except that President Bush never said anything so unkind. For good measure, Biden even took Christ’s name in vain during the interview.
Add it up, and it’s little wonder White House press secretary Robert Gibbs seems so eager to discuss “birthers.”
