Consider the mortifying irony: The president of the most powerful and one of the more literate nations on earth has been reduced to holding press conferences in which he must explain--and explain, and explain--for the edification of that nation's most ignorant but also most internally powerful political faction that two and two make four and that bills accumulated really should be paid.
I didn't count the number of times President Obama used "simple" to explain our options on raising the debt ceiling--which consist of one--but it was a lot. And with each use, our mortification was intensified, as, no doubt, his was.
An even deeper irony came in the president's reminder that if it's "certainty" that business needs, as Republicans have solemnly preached to all for lo these many years, then threatening to pummel America's credit and shut down its government is an exceptionally improbable path to it.
Or, as the enlightened Founders would have put it, Well fucking duh!
Yet, here we are. The world's most powerful nation, highly educated and technologically sophisticated, and its leader must hold press conferences of such elementary emphasis as to maybe make preschoolers proud, but the body politic, not to mention the Founders, just downright ashamed.
Well, since the media won't educate the public, he has to. ANd based on the number of times the press asked the same question over and over, it is pretty obvious why the media hasn't educated the public. They don't have a clue what it is all about either.
I think he went into the presser (which I wasn't able to watch but received love updates on) wanting to accomplish a couple things.
1. Explain exactly what the debt ceiling was and why it is important to raise it.
2. Explain the conseuqneces of not raising it. For example, SS checks being delayed, disability benefits being delayed, etc.
3. Put the blame squarely where it belonged. One thing I particularly liked (assuming my informants were correct) is the he did not, this time, use the generic "Congress" term, but specifically laid it all on the GOP.
It sounds like he accomplished all three of those items.
Posted by: japa21 | January 14, 2013 at 11:51 AM
Why isn't the media educating the public about this? Are they deliberately trying to make things seem more complicated than they really are just to create more drama which leads to higher ratings and more mouse clicks or are they stupid too? And if our body politic is so smart why is it that there are so many anti-government tea baggers in office holding jobs that they have no intention of doing while collecting checks and getting health care from the government they claim to hate so much?
Posted by: AnneJ | January 14, 2013 at 12:08 PM
A well informed public is not in any way desirable to the owners of the media. We cannot expect help from that area.
Posted by: Jimiskin | January 14, 2013 at 12:19 PM
AnneJ -
I'm guessing because they think that stating objective facts would require them to "take a side" and "balance" requires that they not do that.
At least this presser was pretty clear about what's going on so just reporting what the President said may help some. Now Obama just needs to go back out and do this again in a day or two. And again a day or two after that. And again... And maybe get some surrogates to join in as well.
One of his biggest failings (IMO) is that he's done pressers like this in the past and it's like they think that's all they need to do. Just one presser. Like a one-time explanation should be sufficient. For an aware and engaged nation (are there any of those?) it might be enough, but for this one not so much. It's disappointing that such a great orator has such a poor record of getting his message across (outside the campaign).
Posted by: JTL | January 14, 2013 at 12:43 PM
I guess one might consider this a little mortifying yet necessary to informing the terminally disinterested as to why they suddenly find themselves in a shitstorm. But look on the bright side. There are deeper depths to plumb when it comes to exposition. When your president starts to sound like Rachel Maddow on her anaphoric anabasis to whatever point she is trying to make then you will have something to justify the grinding your teeth.
Posted by: Peter G | January 14, 2013 at 12:51 PM
I could not disagree more with PM.
The founding fathers would not have been the least bit ashamed. They would expect this, which is why they believed in a republic but not a democracy. As for the press, they probably would be surprised that it is as good as it is - which is but one reason why they did not trust democracies.
And I know that PM knows that.
Posted by: Robert Lipscomb | January 14, 2013 at 12:53 PM
Hey PM! Do you follow Mark Knoller on twitter? He's the cbs white house correspondent. He has been corrected so many times by other political bloggers on the definition of the term debt ceiling. Knoller also has also been checked for lying about who racked up the deficit. Its become a joke among the people I follow.
Posted by: Alli | January 14, 2013 at 02:28 PM
Last evening I watched Bill Moyers interview Paul Krugman on PBS....now there are two media types that get to the facts! Krugman (answering questions from Moyers) laid out the facts of the debt ceiling as well as other "maufactured" fiscal crisis in a very understandable way. Sadly, only me and a couple others were probably watching!
Posted by: sueme | January 14, 2013 at 03:10 PM
"the presser (which I wasn't able to watch but received love updates on)"
I would have enjoyed it more with those updates too.
Posted by: Beauzeaux | January 14, 2013 at 05:38 PM