Obama’s “I screwed up” comment
Liberals have been falling all over themselves this week praising President Obama’s admission while on the news media circuit that he “screwed up” with the nomination of Tom Daschle to the HHS post:
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama on Tuesday abruptly abandoned his nomination fight for Tom Daschle and a second major appointee who failed to pay all their taxes, telling NBC News: “I screwed up.”
“I’ve got to own up to my mistake. Ultimately, it’s important for this administration to send a message that there aren’t two sets of rules — you know, one for prominent people and one for ordinary folks who have to pay their taxes,” Obama said on NBC’s “Nightly News with Brian Williams.”
The admission came little more than 24 hours after Obama had said he was “absolutely” committed to Daschle’s confirmation as secretary of health and human services, a job in which he would taken the lead in the president’s ambitious plans for the nation’s health care system.
“I’m frustrated with myself, with our team. … I’m here on television saying I screwed up,” Obama said on NBC. He repeated virtually the same words in interviews with other TV anchors.
The typical liberal reaction to this was (paraphrasing): “It’s such a relief to ‘finally’ have a president who will own up to his mistakes!”
Really? That’s setting the bar really low. This was an easy mistake for him to own up to. The hard one apparently is for him to admit he was wrong about the surge. Let’s not forget that last summer he said he would still have voted against the surge even had he known at the time how successful it would end up being in terms of the downturn in violence that led to other positive things happening in Iraq.
People like to talk about how Bush’s mistakes “cost lives” in Iraq but Obama’s failure to admit he was wrong about the surge just shows the same foolish bullheadedness others criticized Bush for years about re: Iraq after things started heading south. Had then-Senator Obama had his way about the surge, that would have “cost lives” as well: We would certainly have seen the violence continue to get worse, resulting in more American soldier and coalition casualties, not to mention skyrocketing civilian deaths – possibly even resulting in genocide long-term, thanks to his desire to “cut our losses and get out.”
When he owns up to admitting his poor (not to mention dangerous and irresponsible) judgment in continuing to oppose the surge even after he knew what the results of it were, I’ll be impressed. Until then, this is just small potatoes.