Last week I accused the president of having a vindictive streak — of deliberately trying to make the lives of average Americans worse just so he could score ideological and political points.
In the case of the sequester, he ordered Cabinet secretaries not to do their jobs — i.e., to manage as best they could — but instead to find ways to make the cuts needlessly painful for innocents caught in the crossfire.
They dusted off the same playbook for the shutdown. As one park ranger told The Washington Times, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can.”
Admittedly, the case was circumstantial. There was no smoking gun. What was really needed was a confession.
Obama delivered. On Oct. 8, he was asked by Mark Knoller of CBS if he was “tempted” to sign the numerous funding bills passed by the GOP-controlled House that would greatly alleviate the pain of the shutdown.
Republicans have voted to reopen parks, fund cancer trials for children at the NIH, and to keep FEMA and the FDA going through this partial shutdown. But Obama has threatened to veto any such efforts, effectively keeping the Senate from considering the legislation.
“Of course I’m tempted” to sign those bills, Obama said. “But here’s the problem. What you’ve seen are bills that come up wherever Republicans are feeling political pressure, they put a bill forward. And if there’s no political heat, if there’s no television story on it, then nothing happens.”
For the first time in US history, a president confessed to deliberately hurting his country to score points against his enemies.
Read more: nypost.com
