"I'm not gonna make any excuses." -- Barack Obama
The good folks at the RNC have released a video highlighting President Obama's penchant for offering excuse after excuse rather take responsibility for his policy failures.
Watch the "From 'Hope' to Hypocrisy: Excuses, Excuses" video:
This is one more example of Obama saying one thing while doing another or trying to have things both ways. He says he is "not gonna make excuses," but continues to do so.
As Salena Zito put it in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Obama has blamed the stagnant economy on ATMs, ditches, slurpees, corporate-jet owners, the TEA Party, Republicans, Japan’s earthquake, the Arab spring, the Arab summer, George Bush, and Wall Street (Salena Zito, “Battlegrounds Of Resentment,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review 8/28/11):
- Obama Blamed ATMs And Airport Kiosks For His Failure To Create Jobs. “[T]here are some structural issues with our economy, where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient, with a lot fewer workers. You see it when you go to the bank and use an ATM -- you don't go to a bank teller. Or you go to the airport, and you're using a kiosk, instead of checking in at the gate.” (NBC’s “Today,” 6/14/11)
- Obama: The Republicans Are “Sipping On A Slurpee” And “Kicking Dirt” Onto Democrats. OBAMA: “And we've been pushing that car, pushing it, pushing it, pushing it. The whole time the Republicans have been standing on the sidelines. They’ve been looking down, fanning themselves, sipping on a Slurpee. Kicking dirt down into the ditch. Kicking dirt in our faces. But we kept on pushing” (President Barack Obama, Remarks, Minneapolis, MN 10/23/10)
- Obama Tried To Blame The Japanese Earthquake And Arab Spring For Poor Economic Numbers. OBAMA: “Let me start by saying a few words about our economy. There is no doubt this has been a tumultuous year. We’ve weathered the Arab Spring’s effect on oil and gas prices, the Japanese earthquake and tsunami’s effect on supply chains, the extraordinary economic uncertainty in Europe. And recently, markets around the globe have taken a bumpy ride.” (President Barack Obama, Remarks, Washington, D.C., 8/5/11)
- Obama Says He “Inherited” A Bad Economy. “Lately, Obama and his aides have taken to saying that they ‘inherited’ a troubled economy, a more subtle reference to the past at a time that many voters increasingly see Obama as being part of the problem.” (Peter Wallsten, “Obama: Bush Put Us In A Hole,” The Washington Post, 8/30/11)
- Obama: Problems In Europe “Wash Over Into Our Shores.” “But the truth of the matter is, is that we now live in a global economy where everything is interconnected, and that means that when you have problems in Europe and in Spain and in Italy and in Greece, those problems wash over into our shores.” (President Barack Obama, Remarks by the President at a DNC Event in Washington, DC, 8/8/11)
Obama has also blamed Congress even though for the first two years of the Obama presidency the Obamacrats controlled Congress:
- Obama Blame's Congress. OBAMA: “Well, look, we anticipated that the recovery was slowing. The economy is still growing, but it's not growing as fast as it needs to. I've got things right now before Congress that we should move immediately. And I said so before I went on vacation and I'll keep on saying it now that I'm back. We should be passing legislation that helps small businesses get credit.” (NBC's "Nightly News" 8/29/10)
- Obama Got Almost Everything He Wanted Out Of The Democrat-Controlled Congress. “He passed $830 billion in stimulus, $3 billion for cash for clunkers, $30 billion in small business loans, $30 billion for mortgage modification, the GM-Chrysler bailouts, ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, credit card price controls, Build America Bonds, jobless benefits for a record 99 weeks, and more. The only priorities that a Democratic Congress blocked were cap-and-tax and union card check, and both of those would have further damaged growth and jobs. Even last December, after Republicans had retaken the House, Mr. Obama won his one-year payroll tax cut, more jobless benefits and most of what he wanted.” (Editorial, “The Latest Jobs Plan,” The Wall Street Journal, 9/9/11)
- “Mr. Obama Has Been The Least Obstructed President Since LBJ In 1965 Or FDR In 1933, Which Is How We Got Here.” “The larger political subtext of Mr. Obama's speech is that if Congress doesn't pass his plan, he'll then campaign against Republicans as obstructionist. Thus his speech mantra that Congress should ‘pass it right away.’ This ignores that Mr. Obama has been the least obstructed President since LBJ in 1965 or FDR in 1933, which is how we got here.” (Editorial, “The Latest Jobs Plan,” The Wall Street Journal, 9/9/11)
Another Obama excuse is his claim he didn’t know how bad the economy was even though he said it was historic:
- President Obama Claims “We Didn’t Know How Bad It Was.” “President Barack Obama said Tuesday he wishes he knew the full extent of the economic crisis when he took office, if only so he could have let Americans know just how tough the coming years would be. ‘I think we understood that it was bad, but we didn’t know how bad it was,’ Obama said in an interview with KIRO in Seattle. ‘I think I could have prepared the American people for how bad this was going to be, had we had a sense of that.’” (Jennifer Epstein, “Barack Obama On Economic Crisis: ‘We Didn’t Know How Bad It Was,” Politico’s "44", 12/13/11)
- Obama: The Economic “Mess Has Been Bigger Than I Think A Lot Of People Anticipated At The Time.” CNN’S WOLF BLITZER: “When you took office, you said if I don’t have this done in three years then it's going to be a one-term proposition, meaning you’re going to be a one term president. Do you remember that?” OBAMA: “Well, here’s what I remember. When I came into office, I knew I was going to have a big mess to clean up. And frankly, the mess has been bigger than I think a lot of people anticipated at the time.” (CNN’s “The Situation Room,” 8/16/11)
- September 2008: Obama: “We Are Going Through The Worst Financial Crisis Since The Great Depression.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks During First Presidential Debate, Oxford, MS, 9/26/08)
- October 2008: Obama: “We Meet Here At A Time Of Great Uncertainty. Our Economy Is In Crisis.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks, La Crosse, WI, 10/1/08)
- November 2008: Obama: “We Are Facing An Economic Crisis Of Historic Proportions.” (President-Elect Barack Obama, Remarks Announcing Members Of The Economic Team, Chicago, IL, 11/24/08)
- A 2008 Report By Obama Advisor Larry Summers Described The Economic Crisis As “Grim And Deteriorating Rapidly” And Predicted America Could Lose 4 Million More Jobs Within The Year. “The initial debate was framed by a fifty-seven-page memo to the President-elect, dated December 15, 2008, written by Larry Summers, his incoming director of the National Economic Council. Marked ‘Sensitive and Confidential,’ the document, which has never been made public, presents Obama with the scale of the crisis. ‘The economic outlook is grim and deteriorating rapidly,’ it said. The U.S. economy had lost two million jobs that year; without a government response, it would lose four million more in the next year. Unemployment would rise above nine per cent unless a significant stimulus plan was passed. The estimates were getting worse by the day.” (Ryan Lizza, “The Obama Memos,” The New Yorker, 1/30/12)
Obama has made at least two attempts to accept responsibility. Three years ago, Obama appeared on NBC's "Today" show and and made his infamous "one-term proposition" prediction:
"I will be held accountable. You know, I’ve got four years. … A year from now, I think people are gonna see that we’re starting to make some progress, but there’s still gonna be some pain out there. If I don’t this done in three years, then there’s gonna be a one-term proposition."
In celebration the three-year anniversary of the Obama "one-term proposition" day, the RNC produced a video cataloguing Democrat leaders' descriptions of the poor economy under President Obama’s failed leadership.You can watch the "How Democrats Describe the Obama Economy" video here.
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