Does the President Not Know that People Write Down the Things He Says?

 

From the Los Angeles Times’ Politics Now blog:

President Obama told a heckler who interrupted a speech on immigration Monday that he will not circumvent Congress and try to halt deportations by executive order because the U.S. is “a nation of laws.”

“Please use your executive order!” shouted the heckler, who was standing behind Obama onstage, close enough to be in the television camera shot during an event in San Francisco’s Chinatown. Urging the president to give immediate relief to those separated from their families at Thanksgiving, he yelled, “You have the power to stop deportations!”

[… T]he solution to the problem “won’t be as easy as just shouting,” he said to the young man. “If you’re serious about making that happen, then I’m willing to work with you.”

“The easy way out is to try to yell and pretend like I can do something by violating our laws,” he said. “What I’m proposing is the harder path” of trying to get the law changed.

And who was that mysterious young man heckling him from the crowd? Presumably, in one of those crazy time travel mix-em-ups, it was Barack Obama from June of 2012. Remember that guy?:

President Obama said Friday the United States will stop deporting hundreds of thousands of young illegal immigrants and give them work permits, a move praised fellow Democrats but criticized by Republicans on Capitol Hill who said the administration has side-stepped the country’s legislative process.

It’s not even the hypocrisy or the rank dishonesty anymore. It’s just the brass with which it’s delivered. 

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  1. Profile Photo Inactive
    @TotusPorcus

    I’m glad you posted this.  That line left me absolutely speechless for the reason you identified (not to mention his ability to “waive” provisions of Obamacare, etc.); powerless even to begin cursing at the television. 

    He’s had at least five years where no one in the press holds him to anything he says.  The “If you like your plan, you can keep it” flap was the first contrary instance.  I think he’s been conditioned to think his rhetoric is invulnerable to criticism, and he can say whatever he wants, whenever he wants to.

    I think there’s a name for that kind of government . . .

    • #1
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    @CharlesAllen

    It is always interesting when the President goes off-teleprompter.  The more he does it, the better.

    For the life of me, I can’t understand how he was ever mistaken for a great orator….

    • #2
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    @DannyAlexander

    Obama actually played that encounter brilliantly.

    He’s *trying* to rile up people like that heckler — the heckler is representative of (a segment of) Obama’s base, and Obama needs to get the base shaken out of its punch-drunk stupor post-404Care-launch.

    Hypocrisy?  Check.  

    Rank dishonesty?  Sure.  

    Brass?  Never brassier — he delivered these words on a fundraising-with-fatcats swing, after all.

    But the point is stirring up the Red Guards too — gotta give Obama credit for seizing the moment to slickly do just that.

    • #3
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    @CrowsNest

    The picture caption: 

    The reaction in the room when Robert Gibbs asked “What of the rule of law, sire?”

    • #4
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    @NickStuart

    “What difference, at this point, does it make?” He’s president for 3 1/2 more years. 

    Besides, in his sociopathic narcissistic mind, he doesn’t say things he believes are true. He believes things are true because he says them, and it is our good fortune to be blessed with his every word.

    Sorry, I know I’m repeating things I’ve said in previous posts, hard to resist. Any Ricochetian who an idea for anything we could actually do, besides elect Republican majorities to the House and Senate next year (sorry to be partisan, but Democratic majorities surely won’t do anything to check him). Even then we would have to pray the Republicans would have the gonadal fortitude to fight (not at all a sure thing).

    • #5
  6. Profile Photo Inactive
    @NickStuart
    Totus Porcus:  

    He’s had at least five years where no one in the press holds him to anything he says.  The “If you like your plan, you can keep it” flap was the first contrary instance.  I think he’s been conditioned to think his rhetoric is invulnerable to criticism, and he can say whatever he wants, whenever he wants to.

    And if there is ever any serious possibility of Obama being injured by negative press coverage, the MSM will circle the wagons to protect their favorite son. It’s in their nature, it’s what they do.

    • #6
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    @flownover

    Your inkling of a setup is true of course. The heckler was a plant. 

    These guys are slipping. What’s left of his staff are a bunch of second tier hacks.

    Valerie must be too busy showing Ahmad the sights in Tehran .

    • #7
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    @CharlesAllen
    Danny Alexander: Obama actually played that encounter brilliantly.

    I really can’t decide if he is playing it brilliantly, or whether he is a Chauncy Gardener doofus who can’t be trusted off script to handle public encounters competently.  Either option doesn’t speak well of the man…

    Good to be standing side-by-side again old friend (at least in the comment section), like when we ran for class President/VP in 2nd Grade back in the Carter era….

    • #8
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    @TheScarecrow
    RushBabe49: Like I have also said before, liberals will state something, bald-faced and for the record, then 5 minutes later deny they ever said it.  Even  when their remarks are played back for them, they state that they are “being taken out of context”, and did not say what we think they said.  And of course the sycophantic media cover for them until the end of time.  Or, in OTL’s case, you are misinterpreting what he said because you are racist. · 11 hours ago

    “Oceania was at war with Eurasia: Therefor Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia”“Oceania was at war with Eastasia : Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia”
    • #9
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    @DocJay

    Flownover, you beat me to it. Obama is a snake oil act.

    • #10
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    @RushBabe49

    Like I have also said before, liberals will state something, bald-faced and for the record, then 5 minutes later deny they ever said it.  Even  when their remarks are played back for them, they state that they are “being taken out of context”, and did not say what we think they said.  And of course the sycophantic media cover for them until the end of time.  Or, in OTL’s case, you are misinterpreting what he said because you are racist.

    • #11
  12. Profile Photo Inactive
    @PHCheese

    They both are Plants in more ways than one.

    • #12
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    @FrederickKey

    He knows he can get away with it because of the short atten–squirrel!

    • #13
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    @

    Plant or no plant, I’m surprised he doesn’t do it more often, which is really saying something. Who’s going to hold him to account? Boehner, McConnell, the media? People, Rome is crumbling and we’re still aghast? I lost my aghast when he got past Bill’s Hills.

    • #14
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    @DocJay

    Troy, why don’t you address the staged protest. We have Obama planting fainting ladies, rigged press conferences with prearranged questions, and rigged announcements with fake protestors. It’s one gigantic Soviet style faked event and nobody calls him on it. Obama could kill a baby and eat it and I swear the media would spin it positively somehow. Obama The Liar depends on the cooperation of his media and the silence of good people worried about their futures.

    • #15
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    @CrabbyAppleton

    We all know that he knows he is lying.  I don’t believe, though, that he lies because he thinks he is doing it for some higher good.  I’m convinced he just doesn’t care. 

    • #16
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    @DannyAlexander

    flownover, DocJay, and all — re the plants/staged situations:

    The way I see it, on some days we’re living through the African-American version of the Woodrow Wilson presidency — and on some days we’re living through the African-American version of what a Huey Long presidency might have been like…

    • #17
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    @SEnkey

    Obama is the high school prom date who insists her dress makes her look fat to illicit praise for her figure. He plants the ideas and then pretends he is responding to the demands of his constituents.

    Not to say that his constituents aren’t insane. 

    • #18
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