1115.org

So the interview was taped, took place in the Oval Office, and featured questions about Yale’s Skull & Bones. How is it that the President still sounded like he he had no idea what he was talking about? What would have happened if Tim Russert had been half as tenacious and probing as he has been with the Democrats running to replace the President?

Russert did a better job than I expected, and there is some internal debate here about whether you can throw fastballs at a sitting President. But it would have been better if the President had been forced off of the talking points he clung to so tightly. Watching the President smirk his way through this interview was painful at best. Hearing him constantly say “let’s take a step back and get some context” while running out the time for questions by repeating the same lines was beneath the office of the President.

Are we supposed to believe that he was duped into going to war? Tricked into irresponsible tax cuts? There comes a time when the person in charge has to take responsibility. I have not heard this President accept any responsibility for anything.

Addressing the parents of soldiers killed and wounded in action and telling them that this wasn’t done in vain was criminal.
At least now the blowjob isn’t the most dishonorable thing that has ever happened in the Oval Office.

Even Peggy Noonan couldn’t give him a pass.

The president seemed tired, unsure and often bumbling. His answers were repetitive, and when he tried to clarify them he tended to make them worse. He did not seem prepared. He seemed in some way disconnected from the event. When he was thrown the semisoftball question on his National Guard experience–he’s been thrown this question for 10 years now–he spoke in a way that seemed detached. “It’s politics.” Well yes, we know that. Tell us more.

Speaking of the National Guard questions, he both agreed to release some of the records, and then lied about whether he had released them in 2000. Either way, there should be enough for some reporters to grab hold of.

I also feel it necessary to point out that the administration spent tens of thousands of dollars for that Medicare ad that ran during the interview. Tens of thousands of dollars that we don’t have, used to promote a plan that was rammed through congress with $140 billion missing from its price tag. How is this all conservative again?

It’s time for a change in this country. Even people on the right are starting to get that. I’d be willing to consider a different Republican candidate if there are any actual fiscal conservatives out there, but it seems as if the only choice is to vote Democrat this November. But the time of stuttering, repeated dogma, and cluelessness needs to come to an end if not now, then in nine months.

The always excellent Center for American Progress has a point-by-point analysis
here.