Stephen Dawson Liveblogs World War II September 23, 1941
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Barack Obama as Slightly to the Right of Colin Powell...

Digby:

Obama as True Believer: [T]he president seems to have been remarkably hostile to any discussion of trying to do another stimulus when it was obvious the first wasn't doing what was needed.... Suskind reports that when the administration was informed of the potential for unemployment at 9.8% in 2010, Obama was pensive, knowing that the midterms could be a bloodbath and he asked for some input.... [H]e was apparently unmoved by the various scenarios, passively saying he hoped the rosier scenarios came to pass and that was that.

It certainly does clear up any thought we might have had about whether or not the president is a real fiscal conservative or whether he was just flogging this deficit obsession for political effect. He's a true believer. And we know this because of his reliance on other deficit hawks and because when the political bloodbath the jobless recovery had predicted came true, his first move was to validate the Republicans' manufactured narrative about what had motivated their voters and launch his program of budget cuts and deficit reduction.

I have thought that his fetish for a Grand Bargain was mostly born of a delusional belief that he was someone who could bridge unbridgeable differences and be remembered as the man who brought cats and dogs together. But it looks as though he was just as motivated by the fact that he's a true blue, Concord Coalition, Pete Peterson deficit hawk.

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