Easy Inferences

There's been a glimmer of hope showing up as the liberal press begins to ask semi-tough questions of the White House about those things they spin incessantly to try to deflect any criticism.

There's enough factual information out there on the Benghazi massacre to make easy inferences about the fundamental underlying story.  The White House has stonewalled on specific names, timelines, and details on that scandal, but it has become obvious that the president is to blame for the people who were killed by terrorists there.  We know that he received a briefing on Benghazi while the attack was taking place, then left the meeting to do whatever it is he wanted to do.  It's clear that he did nothing either to try to prevent the attack or to rescue the ambassador and his staffers once it began.  The amazingly weak story that was provided blames the Libyan government for not allowing our commandos to take off from the airport to commence a rescue mission.   It's a stunning example of presidential incompetence I don't think we've ever seen before.

Now the president's lying about the decision to end White House tours.  He of course won't tell us how or why the decision was made, but it's incredibly obvious that he or his closest advisors made the decision as part of their campaign to inflict pain on Americans for allowing the sequestration to go through.  It's disappointing that he demonstrated one of his most consistent traits, when he lied to the press in saying the White House had nothing to do with that decision. 

Now we are again recycling the same old arguments over the federal budget.  You'd think that even though the president wants only tax increases to close the deficit gap, he'd be able to identify some budget cuts, even if they're symbolic and insignificant cuts to programs that republicans like.  But he won't even do that.  Instead, he claims credit for natural spending reductions from winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  But instead he continues to campaign on higher taxes for the "rich" and closing "loopholes" for industries he doesn't like (namely oil).

If he wanted to be taken seriously by thinking people, why doesn't he propose slicing the tax code to the bone, removing all of the special tax deductions, credits, exemptions, and preferences from everybody.  But of course he's the most politically partisan president we've had in my lifetime, therefore everything he does is designed to help his friends and harm his enemies.  The concept of finding policies that are good for all of America is foreign to his way of thinking.  Obama's belief is that what's good for Democrats is good for the country, and what's bad for Republicans is good for the country.

So the competing budget proposals are as expected, and Obama continues to mischaracterize the Republican plan as designed to help the rich get richer on the backs of poor and seniors.  From the Right is a budget-cutting plan that cuts the fat and repeals Obamacare.  The Obamacare repeal by itself is enough to guarantee it will be blocked by the Democrats.  From the Left is a tax-hiking plan with expansion of spending on liberal policies, which by the way completely ignores even lip service to deficit reduction.  Republicans already gave Obama his tax hike on the rich, so the Left's plan will also go nowhere.

I don't see a way out of the mess.  There is no compromise between fiscal responsibility and unlimited spending with income redistribution.  There is no middle ground between gay marriage and traditional marriage.  Between destroying babies in the womb and protecting them.  Between socialism and capitalism.  Between cradle-to-grave nanny state regulation and freedom. Between energy independence and save-the-planet government destruction of cheap energy sources.

Freedom versus Fairness.