From The Oval:
As President Obama and congressional Republicans joust in the coming weeks over the federal debt ceiling, consider this quote:
The fact that we're here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. Leadership means 'The buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America's debt limit.The speaker: Then-Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., back in 2006.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs -- who immediately recognized the quote when ABC's Jake Tapper read it to him -- said Obama wanted to make a point at that time, namely the deficit spending run up by the George W. Bush administration. Gibbs noted that in 2006 Obama knew the Senate as a whole would vote to raise the debt. ceiling. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/01/obama-once-opposed-lifting-debt-ceiling/1#.UPeRb37TmcwSorry, but I don't buy it. He said it, he meant it. You don't play around when you playing with the government's debt.So, is Gibbs saying that Obama wasn't serious when he said it? Was Obama lying when he said it? And if Obama didn't mean it then, why should we believe him now?
h/t: Boots and Sabers: http://bootsandsabers.com/
It's a sad fact of political life that politicians do this sort of thing. But it is true that prior to the last debt limit fight, it was a common procedure to cast a protest vote--when they knew the thing was actually going to pass--to make a point. It happened in the opposition party, but never to actually block passage. It's political theater, and I'm not a fan of the practice either. But to hold the economy hostage? To risk global financial collapse to make a point? That's insane. That's what's going on now.
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