New York Times asks Obama: "Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?"
March 08, 2009 10:34 am ET by Media Matters staff
From the transcript of the Times White House reporters' March 6 interview with Obama:
Q. The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?
A. You know, let's take a look at the budget - the answer would be no.
Q. Is there anything wrong with saying yes?
A. Let's just take a look at what we've done. We've essentially said that, number one, we're going to reduce non-defense discretionary spending to the lowest levels in decades. So that part of the budget that doesn't include entitlements and doesn't include defense - that we have the most control over - we're actually setting on a downward trajectory in terms of percentage of G.D.P. So we're making more tough choices in terms of eliminating programs and cutting back on spending than any administration has done in a very long time. We're making some very tough choices.
What we have done is in a couple of critical areas that we have put off action for a very long time, decided that now is the time to ask. One is on health care. As you heard in the health care summit yesterday, there is uniform belief that the status quo is broken and if we don't do anything, we will be in a much worse place, both fiscally as well as in terms of what's happening to families and businesses than if we did something.
The second area is on energy, which we've been talking about for decades. Now, in each of those cases, what we've said is, on our watch, we're going to solve problems that have weakened this economy for a generation. And it's going to be hard and it's going to require some costs. But if you look on the revenue side what we're proposing, what we're looking at is essentially to go back to the tax rates that existed during the 1990s when, as I recall, rich people were doing very well. In fact everybody was doing very well. We have proposed a cap and trade system, which could create some additional costs, but the vast majority of that we want to give back in the form of tax breaks to the 95 percent of working families.
So if you look at our budget, what you have is a very disciplined, fiscally responsible budget, along with an effort to deal with some very serious problems that have been put off for a very long time. And that I think is exactly what I proposed during the campaign. We are following through on every commitment that we've made, and that's what I think is ultimately going to get our economy back on track.
[...]
Q. Is there one word name for your philosophy? If you're not a socialist, are you a liberal? Are you progressive? One word?
A. No, I'm not going to engage in that.
[...]
At 2:30 p.m., President Obama called The New York Times, saying he wanted to clarify a point from the interview. Here is a transcript of that brief call:
President Obama: Just one thing I was thinking about as I was getting on the copter. It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn't under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks. It wasn't on my watch. And it wasn't on my watch that we passed a massive new entitlement - the prescription drug plan without a source of funding. And so I think it's important just to note when you start hearing folks through these words around that we've actually been operating in a way that has been entirely consistent with free-market principles and that some of the same folks who are throwing the word socialist around can't say the same.
Q. So who's watch are we talking about here?
A. Well, I just think it's clear by the time we got here, there already had been an enormous infusion of taxpayer money into the financial system. And the thing I constantly try to emphasize to people if that coming in, the market was doing fine, nobody would be happier than me to stay out of it. I have more than enough to do without having to worry the financial system. The fact that we've had to take these extraordinary measures and intervene is not an indication of my ideological preference, but an indication of the degree to which lax regulation and extravagant risk taking has precipitated a crisis.
I think that covers it.
Ugh. You'll get a lot more milage reducing DEFENSE discretionary spending to the lowest levels in decades. As long as our biggest enemies are using box cutters, it should be okay.
I know you'll be called a traitor for doing it, but you'll be called that by a party that doesn't really exist anymore.
When I read the transcript at nytimes.com this morning, I immediately sent a letter to the executive, managing and public editor:
"NY Times has a chance to interview the president -- and this is the question I see on page two of the Internet version? "The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?"One can hardly believe that this is truly the type of question that a) the New York Times would ask and b) that one should even be posing during our country's time of extreme need. Not only that, there were follow up questions after that one -- a follow up question on socialism for heaven's sake, and another that he might be more liberal than he leads on. Seriously??? Were these questions submitted from Lou Dobbs, Redstate.org, Limbaugh, Beck, Ingraham, O'Reilly, etc. Because they are truly a joke -- a question only a "D" student of journalism might ask (but I doubt it) -- or People Magazine because the last few questions were of that variety.Yes, I am worried about losing my job in the future because of the economy, and I want the NY Times to ask stupid, loaded questions about socialism and People Magazine type questions. Thank you. And I assume your defense is that because it is out there in the cable news chatter and blog, it has to be ask because it is relevant to current news. Well, your reporters and all those delinquent cable news chatters are making it relevant. If inane arguments like that were not brought up in the media, there would not be a discussion on them. How can you not understand that? Even Obama said in a follow up call after the interview, "It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question."This is dumbed down journalism at its finest. This caters only to the inside the beltway media mavens and pundits that are wealthy beyond any standard of 99% of the Americans, who not only are so far removed from the ordinary American's concerns, but who's only goal is to create a controversy where there is none -- controversy that only serves ratings on network news, cable shows, print and increases traffic to websites, and now, the NY Times has joined the fray. (Though some would argue you joined that fray long ago.)Just imagine, with such an opportunity to interview the president, what other insightful questions could have been asked that would shed more light on the country's precarious situation instead of focusing a conversation on socialism? The NY Times wasted their opportunity and contributed to dumbing down journalism even further. And I keep thinking it can not get any more stupid -- and unsurprisingly, I am constantly proven wrong."Todd, they'll be some lame Kleenex sniffling by the ombudsman in next Sunday's "Week in Review" and then their editorial BS will roll merrily along, influenced by the sniveling cowards of their for-profit board room. Gray Lady Down.
But you sir, wrote a great letter.
Q. The first six weeks have given people a glimpse of your spending priorities. Are you a socialist as some people have suggested?
A. You know, let's take a look at the budget - the answer would be NO.
Q. Is there anything wrong with saying yes?
A. If the answer is NO, then sure, I guess there'd be something wrong with saying "yes".
Is there something specific in my administration's and in a majority of Congress's "spending priorities" as you say, is there something specific there that you think is socialist? Because I and every available qualified person I can get to help me with this wicked recession, we are using every available Constitutional and American and legal and Federal and fiscal and sensible means we can think of, to address this issue. Which of those Constitutional and American means we are trying, would you describe as socialist?
Q. [Most likely something would be said here, about infusing so much money at this time, from the U.S. Treasury into U.S. banks and financial services companies.]
A. It's a rather bitter medicine for sure, and it's no more fun administering it than it is taking it, but I can't just stand by and watch millions and millions of hard-working Americans have their 401k retirement savings vaporized, can I? That's what it is I'm bailing out and trying to keep afloat, you know. That's the mostly unseen exposure that most Americans have to the plummeting capital markets, in particular the financial services sector and the banks: their 401k plans. The American People's bank savings are insured by the FDIC, but there is no such safety-net beneath their retirement savings, if those savings take the form of monies invested in the capital markets by way of a 401k account. I wish it were not this way, and that the paper that wound up in so many stock funds had been better examined, and that those funds had been better overseen and even regulated... but if the boat you're in is taking on water, then you BAIL like crazy to keep her afloat: and right now I'm the captain of this ship, and so sure I'm BAILING like crazy, to keep those millions and millions of the American People's 401k retirement accounts afloat and solvent... and the banks too, I'm BAILING them out, because while there might be some nobility in the captain going down with the ship, there's nothing but shame and tragedy in allowing so many Americans to have their private retirement savings accounts vaporized by an unregulated and irresponsibly reckless Wall Street...
And I'm at a stand to find any one word to describe the Constitutional and American solutions I and my administration and Congress are attempting to apply to this serious problem: if there were a single word that fit, I hardly think socialist is it...
BUSH is the one single word I'd use here, if I had to choose a single word.
I think we're all BUSHED right now...
AMBUSHED is maybe a good word for it.