Obama Needs New Material
As a television writer and producer, I love reruns. Each time, for instance, a rerun of one of my episodes of Cheers hits the airwaves, I get a small check. A very small check. Still, it's a nice feeling to get paid for work you've already been paid for.
So, someone in the Obama media world needs to pay someone in the Clinton media world something, because in his increasingly shrill and desperate attempt to hold off disaster in November, Obama is trotting out all of the old material. Here he is talking about the years before he took office:
It was not any accident during this same period a very specific philosophy reigned in Washington: You cut taxes, especially for millionaires and billionaires; you cut regulations for special interests; you cut back on investments in education and clean energy, in research and technology. The idea was if we put blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we left everybody to fend for themselves, America would grow and America would prosper.
Okay, this is pretty much the boilerplate Democratic pitch. Trouble is, as Matt Welch describes over at Reason, it's all a lie:
Between 2001 and 2009 George W. Bush did not "cut back on investments in education," he increased them by 58 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. Regulations? "The Bush team has spent more taxpayer money on issuing and enforcing regulations than any previous administration in U.S. history," Reason columnist Veronique de Rugy wrote in January 2009, in a piece that should be distributed to every audience member before an Obama speech.
And that's the trouble with reruns. They're never really as lucrative as the new stuff. Over time, as an episode is run and rerun, the checks get tinier and tinier. My latest check for a Cheers rerun was somewhere around $6.00.
And that's a great show business lesson for our president: you can't live on reruns.
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May '10
Re: Obama Needs New Material
If we're going to get blamed for ruthlessly cutting government regardless, then why don't we just go ahead and do it next time?
Jul '10
Re: Obama Needs New Material
It was always surprising when a colleague would say something to the effect of "Bush is so conservative, he's evil!" and I would think "I wish he were conservative." But I'd mostly mumble something about No Child Left Behind or the Medicaid Prescription Drug Benefit or the creation of massive new federal bureaucracies. The retort to the Department of Homeland Security is they are spying on all of us! Don't flatter yourself...
Edited on Sep 27, 2010 at 6:33amMay '10
Re: Obama Needs New Material
Six bucks won't even buy two months of Ricochet. I hate to think Diane's having to scrape by on that. I mean, sure, you could probably cut em a good deal, but still. And where is John Ratzenberger? We promise not to call him Cliffy.
I wonder how much the theme song guys get paid. It's a lost art these days, but some were memorable. To this day, I never grill beans. And always seek out bars where everybody knows your name. Except when conducting extramarital affairs, cause that would be counterproductive.
Edited on Sep 27, 2010 at 6:42amSep '10
Re: Obama Needs New Material
Of course what BO means when he says that W "cut back on investments in education" is that Bush didn't spend as much as the Dems wanted. In the past, when we've said we wanted to spend 1, they replied with we want 10. Then we 'compromised' on 5. No more of this!!!
May '10
Re: Obama Needs New Material
What was it Churchill said about the relations between Parliament and the Admiralty? They demanded twelve ships, and we could only afford eight. So we compromised on fourteen.
And then he said at least he'd be sober in the morning. I think.
May '10
Re: Obama Needs New Material
Which is about $6 more than anything I ever got when one of the old games I worked crew on is replayed on cable...
Re: Obama Needs New Material
I've been known, in a pinch, to steal a plot here and there from the old Dick Van Dyke Show, which was always a rewarding hunting ground for great situations. But I'd dress it up a bit.
What Obama's doing is doubly silly. He's stealing tired old Democratic tropes, without understanding that they need to be updated. In a year in which the big voter concern is spending, he's out there promising to....spend more. He's claiming that Republicans are too stingy! This is truly idiotic. He should be pointing to all of that Bush spending. He should be promising to balance the budget, like Clinton did. It's always astonishing -- though by now it shouldn't be -- how tone deaf this guy is.
May '10
Re: Obama Needs New Material
Politicians are often guilty of what they accuse their generals of, namely, always fighting the last war.
David Plouffe and Obama think that they found "it," the magic message and magic formula to build a permanent progressive majority. But, as is the case so often in politics, what they designed worked for a specific moment in time, namely November of 2008. That doesn't mean it works again two years or four years farther down the road.
Republicans fell into the same trap. They thought what worked in '94 would carry them through to a permanent majority status, too.