Writing in the Daily Beast, Eric Alterman describes president Obama's budget speech last week as one of his best, a brilliant exposition of philosophical first principles. I listened to the speech on TV and my reaction was that it was one of the nastiest, meanest most dishonest efforts from Obama yet. Now I realize that Alterman may think that a speech filled with nasty, dishonest statements about the positions taken by Republicans is a masterpiece of liberal principles, but I truly doubt that to be the case. Rather, my best guess is that Alterman actually accepts the idea that a budget proposal from the Ryan led budget committee that calls for changes in ten years to the way new Medicare applicants are handled is the same as throwing all of the elderly out onto the street for them to handle all of their medical care with no help from the government. Alterman probably also accepts that tax increases are actually spending reductions in another form. Alterman probably is also willing to accept that there is so much waste in medicare that the fderal government will be able to wring another half trillion dollars of savings out of current spending levels even though there is supposedly an effort already underway to do just that which has yet to save so much as a single dollar after a full year's efforts. Indeed, Alterman probably believes that there actully is an effort to save money from Medicare, not just a bunch of speeches in which Obama claims that the effort is underway.
It is indeed sad that national media has gone so far in accepting the full Obama line that none of Obama's doubletalk is exposed to the public. sure, Alterman would accept just about anything that Obama said. Nevertheless, the American people are not that gullible. They deserve the truth.
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