Obama Mocks Fox, Teabaggers
Speaking at a town hall event in Arnold, MO earlier today,President Barack Obama took a swipe at Fox News and their tea bagging fans for their lack of seriousness. Watch:
"When you see, you know, those of you that are watching certain news channels on which I'm not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security."
He went on to note that the stimulus bill--the supposed source of simmering teabagger outrage--represents only a fraction of the deficit. I strongly question the wisdom of dismissing Fox and the protestors so easily. As we've seen in the last couple months, by ignoring their noises, he may ultimately suffer yet another special election victory in the House and the conversion of one more Senate Republican into a Democrat.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Sure, Barry.
Swat the low-hanging fruitcakes!
~
April 29, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just don't get why Obama and people in the Admin keep bringing up Social Security. Don't even mention it, leave it out of discussions, leave it for 2011 if there's a need to increase SS Revenue. Why keep lobbing one into wheelhouse of the "Social Security Is Broke!!!!" nutters.
John
April 29, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree they shouldn't keep bringing up Social Security reform, but mentioning it often is a good idea as long as it's in the context of reminding people that the GOP wanted to stick it in the financial markets, and now it looks more stable than stocks, bonds, mortgages, etc. Social Security might not even need saving if we just have a decent economy over the next 30 years. We don't even need 1990's levels of growth. I say remind people of how just wrong we now know the privatizers to have been.
April 29, 2009 5:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
That there is some good quality snark. You had me going for minute...
April 29, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that Obama needs to stay above the "tea bag" fray. Potshots at Fox News are just fine, of course. What Obama doesn't need is another of those "he's an elitist" opportunities for the GOP.
Especially when the TEA situation doesn't seem to be benefiting Republicans all that much anyway.
April 29, 2009 2:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I kind of disagree. The GOP's approval numbers are so abysmally low that charges of elitism against Obama simply won't stick if they come from the GOP. And the fact is the GOP will find excuses to call him an elitist, socialist, fascist and all other kinds of names no matter what he does. It won't serve him well to act in fear of what Republicans might say about him.
April 29, 2009 3:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with Xantar. The only way to embarrass the repuglicans is to poke fun at their resolute platform of sheer stupidity. We have to make fun of their sophomore attempts to pretend to be grown-ups with immature ideas.
April 29, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe its been polled and he knows that a majority saw the teabag protests as a silly Fox News/right wing radio stunt? If those are the people affected by Obama's eventual tax hikes, there aren't very many of them. If they're not the ones affected, they are someone's fools.
April 29, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Someone's fools is accurate. After the largest tax cut in history passed courtesy of the stimulus bill, the only thing the 'tea bag' crowd was missing was their dunce caps and white robes.
April 30, 2009 1:08 AM | Reply | Permalink