Speaking in Florida on Thursday, the incumbent president of the United States told his supporters to hit the ???mute??? button on their television sets when people say bad things about him.
Presumably he???s referring to situations such as the other day, when his opponent, Mitt Romney, quoted him with 100 percent accuracy??? and then Obama responded with an ad claiming Romney misquoted him, but actually proving that Romney was completely on target, because it ran both Obama???s remarks and Romney???s perfect word-for-word recitation of them.
Having therefore instructed his supporters that reality is whatever Obama says it is, while the evidence of their eyes and ears should be discounted when it proves politically inconvenient, it wasn???t much of a stretch for the President to order his flock to assume the ???see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil??? position when exposed to criticism of him.
???Over the next four months, the other side???s going to spend more money than we???ve ever seen,??? bleated Obama, who has never been outspent by any single opponent in a political contest??? and is currently outspending Mitt Romney by a considerable margin, to fund one of the most negative political campaigns in modern history.
???They???ll have a bunch of ads with scary voices,??? warned a man whose Party likes to claim its opponents want to kill old people by throwing them off a cliff. In fact, the major purpose of Obama???s Florida speech was to roll out the latest version of his ???MediScare??? fear campaign.
Luckily, there???s no reason a loyal Obama voter should have to listen to competing arguments from both sides, or do any difficult thinking before casting a ballot. ???Most of what you hear, you can pretty much just go mute,??? Obama advised. ???Just press the mute button. That???s the good thing about the remote. Or you can use the DVR, and just fast-forward.???
Obama suggested that his followers could skip past all criticism of him ???because these ads are going to say the same thing over and over again. The other side knows they can???t sell their economic plan, because we tried it and it didn???t work.???
This from a President who???s been repeating the same failed ideas over and over again, like a broken record ??? ???Infrastructure spending! Tax hikes on the rich! Stimulus!??? ??? even as the American economy collapsed around him? Who could not begin to dream of returning to the unemployment rates of his predecessor, George Bush? Who, come to think of it, repeats his silly claim to be a campaign spending underdog every single time he gives a speech?
He probably thinks he???s being clever by turning the critique most commonly leveled at his bankrupt presidency back against his opponent, but it comes off as desperate and pathetic. A good deal of the American public becomes annoyed when politicians dodge criticism instead of responding to it. Even though Obama used his remarks to get some laughs, it's the kind of joke few people really want to hear an incumbent politician tell.
It's also deeply insulting to the intelligence of his followers ??? who, it would seem, don???t really mind having their intelligence insulted, any more than they???re concerned about taking a swift kick to their entrepreneurial spirits from Obama.
Some years ago, the Washington Post editorial board got in hot water for describing evangelical Christians as ???poor, ignorant, and easily led.??? What could be a better description for people who accept a demand for - quite literally - blind faith from a politician?
