Charles Krauthammer describes President Obama's strategy:
"What do you do if you can't run on your record--on 9 percent unemployment, stagnant growth and ruinous deficits as far as the eye can see? How to run when you are asked whether Americans are better off than they were four years ago and you are compelled to answer no?
Play the outsider. Declare yourself the underdog. Denounce Washington as if the electorate hasn't noticed that you've been in charge of it for nearly three years.
But above all: Find villains."
A couple of months ago Obama tried excuses: blaming Japanese supply-chain interruptions, the Arab Spring, European debt, and various acts of God. Those didn't work. So the new strategy, as stated by Mr. Krauthammer is: "Don't whine, blame. Attack. Indict. Accuse. Who? The rich--and their Republican protectors--for wrecking America."
"In Obama's telling, it's the refusal of the rich to 'pay their fair share' that jeopardizes Medicare. If millionaires don't pony up, schools will crumble. Oil-drilling tax breaks are costing teachers their jobs. Corporate loopholes will gut medical research.
It's crude. It's Manichaean. And the left loves it. As a matter of math and logic, however, it's ridiculous."
I've blogged before about the weakness of that argument. Charles Krauthammer raises several more examples of Obama's taking the low road. "...this kind of populist demagoguery is more than intellectually dishonest. It's dangerous. Popular resentment, easily stoked, is less easily controlled, especially when the basest of instincts are granted legitimacy by the nation's leader."
Oh I'm going to dislike the games being played before November 2012.
