Fox Invites GOP Parade To Attack Obama For Saying Reporters Are “Impatient” On Deficit
Written by Justin Berrier
Published
After Obama asked the press corps to be patient before jumping to the conclusion that he would not push for any of his fiscal commission's deficit reduction proposals, Fox & Friends proved his point by inviting the normal parade of GOP lawmakers and former officials to attack the president for not acting fast enough to eliminate the deficit.
On Monday, President Obama released his FY 2011 budget which includes over $1 trillion in deficit reduction over the next decade. In a press conference on Tuesday, the president responded to questions about his budget by asking the press corps to be patient before judging his long-term plan (emphasis added):
NBC WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT CHUCK TODD: Thank you, Mr. President. Everything you have talked about -- tax reform, the entitlement reform, two parties coming together just happening in December in your fiscal commission. You had a majority consensus to do all this. It has now been shelved. It seems that you have not taken -- I guess my question is what was the point of the fiscal commission? If you have this moment where you had Tom Coburn, your conservative friend in the United States Senate, sign on to this deal; Judd Gregg was also on this thing; you had Dick Durbin, your good friend from Illinois, Democrat -- everything you just described in the answer to Chip and the answer to Ben just happened. Why not grab it?
THE PRESIDENT: The notion that it has been shelved I think is incorrect. It still provides a framework for a conversation.
Part of the challenge here is that this town -- let's face it, you guys are pretty impatient. If something doesn't happen today, then the assumption is it's just not going to happen. Right? I've had this conversation for that last two years about every single issue that we worked on, whether it was health care or “don't ask, don't tell,” on Egypt, right? We've had this monumental change over the last three weeks -- well, why did it take three weeks? (Laughter.) So I think that there's a tendency for us to assume that if it didn't happen today, it's not going to happen.
As if to prove his point, today's Fox & Friends featured an unbroken parade of GOP lawmakers and former officials to criticize the president for not cutting entitlement spending.
First, Fox & Friends hosted former Bush Press Secretary and Fox News contributor Dana Perino who claimed “it's a very curious complaint to be complaining the press is impatient when he had several months to put together a budget. He'd had the message sent to him by the American people in the midterm elections.”
Next, Fox & Friends hosted the Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) who also complained that “people are impatient ,and they deserve to be. The American people are rightly frustrated by the fact that we have the biggest deficit in the history of our country, and the biggest debt ever...I think the impatience is understandable.” Portman later said he hopes “this means that after the bad headlines and after the response that he's gotten from we Americans who are impatient to look for some results, that he will be able to sit down with Republicans and work things out on all the areas.
Finally, Fox & Friends invited Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to deliver the closing attack on the president. Paul reacted to the president by repeating many of the same points made earlier in the show by his fellow GOP members. But Paul went further and specifically criticized Obama for “not really showing much for boldness or leadership,” and claimed “it just shows that he doesn't want to lead the country.”
Fox & Friends somehow managed to go an entire show without finding a single person who understood what Obama meant by the media being impatient about the legislative process. Instead, they featured their normal parade of right-wingers, eager to attack the president and prove he was right when he said that critics “assume that if it didn't happen today, it's not going to happen.”