Imagine if ‘President McCain’ Joked About the Special Olympics
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on March 26th, 2009 4:41 am by HL
Imagine if ‘President McCain’ Joked About the Special Olympics
President Barack Obama, in an appearance on “The Tonight Show” with Jay Leno, made a self-deprecating but ill-advised joke, in which he referred to the Special Olympics. He quickly apologized. Crisis averted. Fair enough. But the real story is the media double standard: Imagine the uproar if a President John McCain made the Special Olympics comment.
Will Anyone Admit That Taxes Have to Rise?
WASHINGTON — The debate on the budget is phony, the howling on deficits a charade. Few politicians want to acknowledge that if you really are concerned about long-term deficits, you have to support tax increases. That’s why the most significant moment of President Obama’s news conference on Tuesday was not his dodge of a question on AIG, but his defense of the least popular tax increase in his budget: limits on the benefits wealthier taxpayers get for their charitable contributions and mortgage payments. It has been a long time since a president was willing to defend raising taxes. You have to go back to Bill Clinton and his 1993 budget. The consequences for Democrats who voted for that budget — no Republicans did — were grave. Republicans swept the 1994 elections and held on to the House for 12 years. No wonder politicians are so phobic about taxes.
