One tiny, seemingly harmless remark from President Obama caught my ear last night:



Now, what makes today’s stalemate so dangerous is that it has been tied to something known as the debt ceiling – a term that most people outside of Washington have probably never heard of before.


Maybe I’m a bad judge, because I do live and work in Washington, D.C.  But I’m surprised that the President, or his speech writer, would put it this way: “a term that most people… never heard of before.”


It’s been practically the only news story of a very slow summer (besides the Casey Anthony trial and the recent violence in Norway).  On top of that, we’ve raised the debt ceiling 100 times since 1940.  I’m pretty sure most Americans have at least heard of the term.  But I think President Obama has a different vision of the American people than I do.  He must think we are pretty ignorant.  But thank goodness, Obama is here to save us from ourselves…


Then he follows with:



Understand – raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money. It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up.


“Congress” racked up the bills.  (We know, we watched them do it! One-hundred eleventh, I’m looking at you!) But of course, somebody had to sign off on those bills.  Sign them into law, eh-em, I mean.  But the President wasn’t willing to take responsibility for anything last night.  Instead, I felt like he was sitting on the couch next to me, saying, “Can you believe all the poor leadership and partisan bickering going on on Washington?”  As if he doesn’t live just down the road in the White House.  As if he is as powerless to fix the problem as I am.  He wanted to portray himself as (oh, yeah, just like in his 2008 campaign) above the politics.  But Americans aren’t buying it anymore.


If he wanted to make partisan politicians look bad (and he is one), he succeeded.  But the real villian, as anyone who watched last night (or any Obama speech ever) knows, is someone called “thewealthiestAmericans.” Yawn.  He needs some new material.