Live Whiskey-Blogging the President's News Conference:
A new president means a new liquor. The Rude Pundit's done with the vodka, the drink of secret alcoholics not wanting to smell like a frat house bathroom. It's bourbon time. Evan Williams, motherfuckers, a smooth, brown, American sippin' whiskey. Best downed neat.
(All quotes pretty much guaranteed to be inaccurate.)
8:01: And we're off. How odd not to see a President who hunches along like Slim Pickens after being kicked in the nuts.
8:02: How odd to hear a President tell us straight that shit's fucked up.
8:03: Calls the economic problem "a full-blown crisis." Now that's fear that's tangible, not the unprovable fear of "terrorists" bombing the mall.
8:05: Assures us that jobs will be created in the private sector, which is just a bullshit way of saying, "Don't fear the socialism. Fear the subcontractors."
8:07: Says that it's bipartisan, motherfuckers, even if Republicans in Congress have taken themselves out of the equation.
8:07: How odd to hear a President say that he's not sure something will work. All this honesty, calculated though it may be, is gonna take a long damn time to get used to.
8:08: Goddamn, Republicans must be shitting themselves. They pushed him into a corner until he had to bring out the rhetorical sword, and he's swinging it. Even if it's about a week too late.
8:09: The first question is already about trying to undermine his credibility. A question: why don't reporters act like this is just post-9/11? This is arguably a worse actual crisis, if not quite as spectacular. It's more like a tragedy directed by Ingmar Bergman, not Michael Bay. No, deference is not pretty. In any circumstance. But the stink of hypocrisy is as pronounced as a fart in an old elevator.
8:13: "I'm not pulling numbers out of my ass here," he more or less says, and how odd it is to hear a President cite who he's actually drawing information from.
8:15: Says executives need to not be dicks, even if that's something that needs to be enforced. Says homeowners need relief.
8:20: On bipartisanship, he puts the blame on the failure of it squarely on Republicans, saying it's a long-term game. He calls out Republicans who just want to do tax cuts and puts the economic crisis at Republicans' feet. They doubled the debt, they fucked it all up, he's come in to clean it up.
8:24: Can you imagine how hideously awful it'd be to watch the pathetic sight of John McCain attempting to wrestle with this crisis? It'd be like seeing Terri Schiavo on a CW show.
8:26: He actually says how the retarded health care system is bankrupting the country. He says how the education system is fucked up. How we need new schools. How odd it is to see a President explain shit to us like we're grown-ups. And how fucking incredible to hear someone articulate how liberal principles - honestly liberal principles - are the ones that will actually accomplish all the things conservatives say they're in favor of.
8:31: Says that he didn't envision coming into office and spending $800 billion. But it can be the reverse of Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. How does this crisis allow for "emergency" measures for the good of the working and middle class?
8:33: How odd to hear the President refer to reporters by their actual names and not some schoolyard nickname.
8:37: How odd to hear the President with a grasp of facts and an ability to grapple with difficult economic ideas in words that don't sound like his chief of staff just pulled his string.
8:39: Nice question from Ed Henry on if transparency extends to the Bush-era ban on photos of flag-draped coffins of dead soldiers. As expected, Obama says it's under review.
8:42: He lays out a complex plan for how to save the Afghanistan conflict, involving military and diplomatic efforts.
8:45: Hey, wow, the Fox "news" guy asked a dickish and irrelevant question on whether or not Joe Biden was giving away some super-secret conclusions that the stimulus bill is not gonna work. And Obama laughs at him and then makes a point about the nature of actually trying to fix problems.
8:47: A-Rod question?
8:49: Helen Thomas, oh, dear lost love, how the Rude Pundit misses our evenings swatting mosquitoes while making love on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial. (And, as usual, her question is an old-time accusatory one, trying to get Obama to say that Israel has nukes.)
8:52: Huffington Post questioner? It's the dawn of a new era. Hmm, maybe the Rude Pundit needs to try for some White House press credentials. About Patrick Leahy's suggestion that a truth commission is needed on Bush-era scandals, he doesn't close the door, but doesn't leave much more than a crack.
8:55: Okay, we get it: you went to Elkhart, Indiana today. It's a shithole town, yes, but just show us the t-shirt.
8:56: On bipartisanship, again, he says maybe he should have just left out all tax cuts and let Republicans suggest them and take credit. In other words, he should have let the douchebags babies act like douchebag babies. Oh, and by the way, he reminds us, do you remember who put us into this goddamn vortex of financial suck?
9:00: Ends with the idea that he thinks Republicans might act with honor. Now that impossibility deserves a full shot.
More tomorrow.
