Independent experts say that my plan would cut our deficit by $4 trillion. (Cheers.) And last summer I worked with Republicans in Congress to cut a billion dollars in spending, because those of us who believe government can be a force for good should work harder than anyone to reform it so that it’s leaner and more efficient and more responsive to the American people....
Now, I’m still eager to reach an agreement based on the principles of my bipartisan debt commission. No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. I want to get this done, and we can get it done.
Maybe his handlers figured the crowds would go wild, and not in a good way, when he evoked memories of the despised Cat Food Commission. It was Co-chair Alan Simpson who famously derided Social Security as a "milk cow with 300 million tits". And the other co-chair, Erskine Bowles, is a serious Paul Ryan fanboy. As commenter Pearl pointed out, does Obama even want to win the election?
The Secret Service likely was having conniption fits over security anyway, and when they got an advance copy of the speech, the whole shebang went into full emergency lockdown mode. The part of the speech with Obama wind-bagging about all that frackable gas lurking in the earth beneath our feet sent Earth, Wind & Fire running for their lives.
Charlotte, N.C. had been transformed into a virtual militarized zone in which cops from thousands of miles away outnumbered spectators, handfuls of protesters, and various and sundry marginalized citizens. It was a dystopian scene where journalists attempting to take photographs outside the parameters were being threatened with arrest. Patting down 60,000 ticket-holders to Obama's Bank of America speech would have presented a logistical nightmare. And there would likely have been more than a few catcalls when President Obama embraced catfood, inexcusably ignoring the humanitarian crisis of unemployment, the epidemic of foreclosures, and the fact that one out of every four American children is now officially poor. It would have been embarrassing to have cameras pan over all the dispirited homeless people who were bound to have scored a few tickets.
Better to have several thousand loyal partisans in funny hats cheer in a heavily guarded convention center than a city full of freethinkers boo in an open-air space. A stadium speech might have totally upended the ultra-careful scripting of the previous three days, in which almost every speech by every "rising star" seemed to have been crafted by the same P.R. flack. Nonfiction may have reared its ugly head, roared its terrible roar and gnashed its terrible teeth. And it wouldn't have had anything to do with the president's bland rendering of "Where the Wild Things Are" at the White House Easter Egg hunt this past spring.
I wasn't even going to post today, such was my profound state of ennui -- but my spirits were briefly lifted this evening when I got my very first call ever from the Quinnipiac pollsters! I was able to loudly and categorically state for posterity that, contrary to Obama's delusions, I Do Not Give One Shit About the Deficit! Well, that wasn't the exact question, but you get my drift. I was also able to reveal that I would have no problem voting for a Black Hispanic Muslim Mormon Born Again Christian gay person who also happens to be an atheist and morbidly obese -- but was strongly opposed to both Obama and Romney. As I told the pollster lady, I do refuse to accept a choice between stagnating with Barry or sinking with Mitt. But since that wasn't an option, I think she marked me down as "Not Sure." Or confused, or uncooperative.
Whatever. Osama bin Laden is underwater, and so are you.
