A Leadership Default

Editorial do WSJ

The Obama Presidency has been unprecedented in many ways, and last night we saw another startling illustration: A President using a national TV address from the White House to call out his political opposition as unreasonable and radical and blame them as the sole reason for the "stalemate" over spending and the national debt.

We've watched dozens of these speeches over the years, and this was more like a DNC fund-raiser than an Oval Office address. Though President Obama referred to the need to compromise, his idea of compromise was to call on the public to overwhelm Republicans with demands to raise taxes. He demeaned the GOP for protecting, in his poll-tested language, "millionaires and billionaires," for favoring "corporate jet owners and oil companies" over seniors on Medicare, and "hedge fund managers" over "their secretaries." While he invoked Ronald Reagan, the Gipper would never have used such rhetoric about his opposition on an issue of national moment.

One irony is that Mr. Obama's demands for tax increases have already been abandoned by Members of his own party in the Senate. Majority Leader Harry Reid knows that Democrats running for re-election next year don't want to vote to raise taxes, so he's fashioning a bill to raise the debt ceiling that includes only reductions in spending. But Mr. Obama never mentioned that rather large fact about Mr. Reid's effort.

Apart from shifting blame for any debt default, the speech was also an attempt to inoculate Mr. Obama in case the U.S. loses its AAA credit rating. He cleverly, if dishonestly, elided the credit-rating issue with the debt-ceiling debate. But he knows that Standard & Poor's has said that it may cut the U.S. rating even if Congress moves on the debt ceiling. Mr. Obama wants to avoid any accountability for the spending blowout of the last three years that has raised the national debt held by the public—the kind we have to pay back—from 40% in 2008 to 72% next year, and rising. This will be the real cause of any downgrade.

Speaker John Boehner made clear in his speech that the GOP doesn't want a default but wants more genuine cuts in spending. Mr. Obama is betting his rhetoric will cause the public to turn against the GOP, but we wonder if voters will be persuaded by a man whose concept of leadership is the politics of blame.

Comentário: É impressionante como Obama cada vez mais se parece com uma espécie de Lula americano, apenas mais moreninho. Retórica sensacionalista, só pensa em aumentar impostos para os mais ricos (como se isso não afetasse negativamente os mais pobres), culpa os republicanos por todos os problemas, só pensa em fazer campanha política o tempo todo, quer gastar mais e mais dinheiro do pagador de imposto, pretende criar o fracassado SUS nos EUA, e até elogiou o nosso BNDES! Por isso Obama chamou o ex-presidente Lula de "o cara". Seu sonho era viver numa nação tupiniquim em que fosse mais fácil ser populista sem a reação de liberais e conservadores, sem o Tea Party, onde a "oposição" fosse feita por tucanos! Só falta mesmo Obama começar seus discursos falando: "Never before in the history of United States..."