Obama’s Tour of Denial and Blame

It’s being billed as a listening tour—a three-state journey across the Midwest where President Barack Obama will hear directly from Americans about the economy and talk about his ideas for job growth. Instead, though, it has the characteristics of a political campaign swing, and the rhetoric the President has brought along for the ride is marked by a desperate effort to blame someone other than himself for America’s economic woes.

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The President’s tour began yesterday in Cannon Falls, Minnesota, where in one breath he pointed his finger at Washington’s broken politics and in the next he blamed “a string of bad luck … a bunch of things taking place over the last six months that were not within our control.”

You had an Arab Spring in the Middle East that promises more democracy and more human rights for people, but it also drove up gas prices — tough for the economy, a lot of uncertainty. And then you have the situation in Europe, where they’re dealing with all sorts of debt challenges, and that washes up on our shores. And you had a tsunami in Japan, and that broke supply chains and created difficulties for the economy all across the globe.

Morning Bell article

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