Obama Surrenders To Mob, Mob Unimpressed

Here’s one thing you have to say the Obama administration has been remarkably efficient at: managing to piss everyone off. The president’s proposed spending freeze is certainly no different: Republicans say it doesn’t go far enough, House Democrats say they won’t support it, Paul Krugman calls it “a betrayal of everything Obama’s supporters thought they were working for. Just like that, Obama has embraced and validated the Republican world-view — and more specifically, he has embraced the policy ideas of the man he defeated in 2008.” More importantly, Spencer Ackerman wonders why defense funding will remain untouched in spite of the fact that there’s plenty of unnecessary spending that could be cut. Oooh, I can answer that one: The American people are both credulous and inconsistent, and it has now become perfectly clear that rational solutions to our raft of problems can only be employed if they show results within seconds of being put into place. Welcome back to the age of the V-chip!