Obama's PR campaign to avoid responsibility for doing nothing

Ed Rogers:

David Nakamura and Zachary A. Goldfarb wrote a good piece in The Post today titled "Obama public relations effort aims to avoid 'fiscal cliff'." Actually, the president is on a PR tour to avoid dealing with the issue and to place blame on Republicans when we do go over the cliff.

The White House is nothing if not forthright. Yesterday, White House spokesman Jay Carney said, "I don't think there is a lot of faith that a bunch of people sitting around a table are going to solve problems on behalf of the American people." Well, he's right if one of those people is President Obama. The president doesn't have the desire or the skills to solve the problem by sitting down with other government leaders.

The president's campaign/PR strategy makes sense. The president then has a role to play; on the stump he can taunt Republicans with slogans and shallow rhetoric and not much else. He has not developed enough of a mastery of the details to engage with Congress over the federal budget or economic issues.

The president doesn't really know the leaders of Congress, and he doesn't appear to like them much either. He believes he is the smartest person in any room and there is no point in sitting with his more-limited counterparts. They might actually expose his lack of concern and insincerity, or the Democrats' ambivalence about going over the cliff. The administration's plan to rattle around in public, lamenting the failures and biases of Republicans, will get a lot of reinforcement from the media. And the president will receive plenty of pats on the back when he frowns in faux sadness after we go over the cliff. All this is meant to hide the real reason Washington could very well end up doing nothing; the Democrats will not restrain the growth of entitlement spending. It doesn't fit with their idea of promoting a dependent society and protecting their power by doling out money to those that keep them in office.

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The media is not talking about the spending side of the so called "balanced approach."  Nor is Obama, because he was never serious about it to begin with.   Republicans need to find a way to make him have to talk about it.  They might unleash Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio to follow the President around and demand that he put his spending cuts on the table.  I would also suggest that they demand a 10 for one spending cuts to tax increase formula like that put forward by liberal media questioners during GOP debates.  That might draw more attention to the issue.

The media generally responds to issues that are being pushed by either party.  It is time to get off the defensive and put Obama and the media on the defensive about spending.