Fundraisers, golf, White House parties – those have all been elements of criticism the Obama administration has faced in the first two-and-a-half years in office. But earlier this week, President Barack Obama dished some of the criticism at Congress and demanded they get back to work.
On Thursday’s syndicated Mark Levin radio show, freshman Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson questioned the wisdom of Obama’s remarks – especially with the sort of lifestyle he’s leading as president. But he also noted how the news media is playing a role by giving him a pass. (Lesson from Halperin’s MSNBC suspension: Don’t dare trash Barack Obama)
“Let’s face it – we don’t control the news media,” Johnson said. “If this were a Republican president, you know exactly what the story would be every night, every day. It would be the high level of unemployment. They would be doing stories of all those people that lost their jobs. Now the stories are actually saying, ‘Hey, it’s not that bad being unemployed.’ It’s amazing.”
Johnson argued that an Obama reelection would upset the business community, which he said had already taken damage from the president’s political tactics.
“[I] do believe it would be a disaster for this country to have President Obama reelected,” Johnson said. “It would be awful. Let’s face it, we have indebted our children and our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren to the tune of another $4 trillion in his failed attempt at Keynesian economics. It hasn’t worked and they want to keep doing it. And now what they’re really trotting out is they’re scaring seniors –that’s the tired old playbook and they’re engaging in class warfare. Again, I don’t see how class warfare helps improve our economy – how that helps our economy grow. What class warfare does is dispirits the producers of America. It dispirits entrepreneurs. It takes money out of their businesses and really out of the pockets of hard-working people that rely on those people for jobs.”
And what motivates Obama in the White House remains something of a mystery, Johnson said.
“I don’t know why he even wants to be president,” Johnson said. “The primary job description of president is ‘leader.’ He doesn’t want to lead. He never does lead. I mean, it is totally baffling to me why he’d even want to be President of the United States the way he’s acting.”
And he included that the president’s activities suggest there are some problems with his priorities.
“[I] watch President Obama,” Johnson said. “You know, what 76 rounds of golf? He’s held 10 times the fundraisers at this point in his presidency as President Bush did. The guy really is just phoning it in and it’s unbelievable.”