It’s Tuesday, June 12th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

First up, the Morning Examiner‘s Conn Carroll believes, like Michael Dukakis before him,….

….The Obamao may inflicted the wound which will characterize….and perhaps fatally cripple….his campaign:

‘Doing fine’ will define Obama

There is little question that President Obama’s Friday press conference did major damage to his reelection effort. In case you have been on another planet, Obama was asked to defend his economic record, without blaming Europe, and he responded, “The truth of the matter is that, as I said, we created 4.3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine.”

Within minutes, the Republican National Committee had a video up using the president’s quote in a carbon copy version of the ad Obama using Sen. John McCain’s, R-Ariz., September 2008 quote,”the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” And within hours Obama tried to walk back his gaffe, telling the press at a photo-op later in the day, “It is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine.”

But yesterday on CNN’s State of the Union, Obama adviser David Axelrod seemed far less willing to say flatly that the private sector is not doing fine. Asked if he agreed with Obama’s “doing fine” assessment, Axelrod made the case for more government spending: “Candy, the press conference was called to press for hiring … to push — to give state and local governments help to rehire some of the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters, and police who have been laid off in this — in this last couple of years.”

Pressed again to state whether he thought the private sector was doing fine, Axelrod said: “The private sector, we need to accelerate job creation in the private sector. … One of the ways that is we can do that is putting teachers and firefighters and police back to work because those are good middle class jobs.” To which Crowley responded, “That’s the public sector.” Axelrod shot back, “But that will help accelerate the recovery.”

And that is why Obama’s “the private sector is doing fine” comment will stick: because he believes it. The Obama administration truly believes that the private sector is doing just fine and all the economy needs is a bit more Keynesian government spending on government employees to get demand going again. That’s their plan.

Tax reform, cutting regulation, ending the uncertainty of Obamacare and Taxmageddon … none of these problems are on the Obama administration’s radar. They are simply incapable of seeing how government is still strangling private sector economic growth. (*) This will be THE issue going forward in this election.

(*) Or, we’d opine, they just don’t care!

In a related item, the WSJ‘s Bret Stephens details what has defined The Dear Misleader’s term to date:

A Presidency of Excuses

Why’s growth at 1.9% and unemployment still firmly above 8%? Apparently the buck stops in Berlin.

In 1997 Asia’s economy imploded. Currencies collapsed, countries had their ratings downgraded to junk, millions of people lost their jobs, governments were replaced, regimes fell. In October a jittery Dow, fearing the effects of “Asian contagion,” lost 7.2% of its value in a single day. Trading had to be halted twice.

And yet the American economy was unscathed. In 1997 GDP grew by 4.5%. In 1998 it grew again by 4.5%, this time despite the Russian ruble crisis. In 1999, annual growth reached 4.9%, a pace it hasn’t exceeded since. Unemployment fell to 4.2%. The government ran a surplus.

Bear this not-so-ancient history in mind as the Excuse-Maker-in-Chief cites another imploding region to explain 1.9% growth and 8.2% unemployment. “Right now, one concern is Europe, which faces a threat of renewed recession,” Mr. Obama said Friday, rehashing one of his preferred economic alibis. “Obviously this matters to us because Europe is our largest trading partner.”

So now you know: In the Age of Obama, the buck stops in Berlin.

Still, it’s worth taking a closer look at the Blame Europe school of economic analysis. Start with some basic facts: Europe is not our largest trading partner. Canada is. Followed by China. Followed by Mexico. Followed by Japan. “Europe” only counts as America’s largest trading partner in an aggregate sense. An honest apples-to-apples comparison would find that U.S. trade with North America or East Asia dwarfs trade across the Atlantic.

Now take the question of how much trade matters to America. In 2009, foreign trade accounted for 24.3% of the U.S. economy. By contrast, the foreign-trade-to-GDP ratio was 51.9% for China, 71.1% for Canada and 89.2% for Germany. When it comes to foreign trade, the U.S. is the world’s least dependent major economy.

That’s not to say that trade isn’t vital to U.S. prosperity. But that only makes it more noteworthy that the only free-trade agreements Mr. Obama has signed were those initiated by his predecessor (over stiff Democratic objections). A free-trade agreement between the U.S. and the EU could, according to a 2010 analysis by economists Fredrik Erixon and Mattias Bauer, add as much as $181 billion, or 1.3%, to U.S. GDP. Yet the administration has barely paid lip service to the idea.

The real kicker, however, is that even as Mr. Obama points the finger at Europe for America’s economic woes, trans-Atlantic commerce is flourishing as never before. According to the Census Bureau, U.S. exports of goods to Europe have risen every year of Mr. Obama’s administration. They are now on course to exceed the 2011 record of $328 billion. The overall volume of U.S.-EU trade jumped 14% from 2010 to 2011.

That’s something for which Mr. Obama might take credit—like the credit he takes for other achievements of his era to which he was dragged kicking and screaming: the fracking revolution, for instance, or Iran sanctions. But why tout a small victory when it exposes the larger falsehood on which so much of the president’s re-election strategy depends?

Then there is another great Obama excuse: Republicans in Congress. Again, a little history is in order. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 passed the Senate 58-33 in an evenly split chamber. Bill Clinton managed to do business with a GOP that controlled both houses of Congress for six of his eight years in office. Ronald Reagan passed all of his economic agenda through a House that was under constant Democratic control.

Somehow it is only Barack Obama—whose party, in an inconvenient truth for his campaign, still runs the Senate—who seems incapable of working with any Congress not under full partisan control. (And even then he had trouble.) Americans expect their presidents to be able to assemble coalitions of the politically willing in order to achieve pragmatic and relatively popular results. The Obama administration method, by contrast, has been to shove what it can down the public throat, then act surprised when the public gags, or throws up.

Which brings us to the impending Supreme Court ruling on ObamaCare. This year alone the government has managed to lose three high-profile Supreme Court cases 9-0, meaning even Mr. Obama’s own appointees voted against him. Yet an unchastened administration soldiers along, on the theory that losing cases like Citizens United energizes the base and provides a ready-made excuse for its political routs, most recently in Wisconsin.

Now it hopes an adverse ruling on ObamaCare will relieve it of the burden of defending the law while also creating another Emmanuel Goldstein in the person of the chief justice. How classy.

As president, Mr. Obama has attempted to make scapegoats of bankers, bondholders, private-equity firms, insurance companies, energy companies, ATMs, the Chamber of Commerce, the Catholic Church, opponents of illegal immigration, European politicians, Supreme Court justices and even Japanese tsunamis. Next, perhaps, it will be solar flares.

At least tsunamis, solar flares, ATMs and Europeans don’t vote. The rest of the list might eventually amount to 270 electoral votes.

But hey, if things start looking really bad….you know, REALLY bad….like if any of the First Marxists college or law school writings were to be made public….as this next item from Mary Anastasia O’Grady details, they can always depend on help from South of the Border:

Castro Endorses Obama

The dictator’s daughter gets a visa to make speeches here while the regime continues to hold an American hostage.

President Obama has received yet another endorsement, this time from the daughter of Cuban military dictator Raúl Castro. Mariela Castro proclaimed her support for the sitting president 10 days ago, during a visit to the United States. “I believe that Obama needs another opportunity and he needs greater support to move forward with his projects and with his ideas, which I believe come from the bottom of his heart,” she said in a CNN interview in New York.

The dictator’s daughter, who is a vociferous proponent of the Cuban status quo, was ostensibly in the U.S. to discuss matters pertaining to her field of expertise, which has something to do with advocating for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. (Wow, a Marxist GLBT advocate; if only she were 1/32nd Cherokee he’d have hit the trifecta!) As the Cuban-born writer Carlos Alberto Montaner put it in a syndicated column last week, “Mariela is tolerant of sexual preferences and intolerant of all the rest.” He added: “For her, freedom and emotional coherence are something very specifically situated south of the navel.”

Notwithstanding her “work” as what she calls “a sexologist,” the Communist Party official did not shy away from carrying water for Uncle Fidel and her despotic daddy while on American soil. Much of her time was spent promoting the party line and disparaging human-rights defenders. Among other pearls from the child of privilege came the claim that in Cuba “people who dissent don’t go to jail.” She also put on the table again Cuba’s view that if the U.S. wants to win the release of U.S. Agency for International Development contractor Alan Gross, who has been languishing in a Cuban jail since December 2009, it should agree to release the five convicted Cuban spies who are in jail in the U.S.

Ms. Castro’s affinity for the American president aside, it is passing strange that the administration even issued her a visa. It claims it is doing all it can to free the ailing 63-year-old Mr. Gross, and Ms. Castro’s desire for entry presented an opportunity to make that point to the regime. But apparently the importance of pleasing the Obama base in San Francisco, where she was invited first to talk about homosexual rights, was an even higher priority than the “high-priority” Mr. Gross.

Any question were Gross a Muslim he’d already be back in Maryland?!?

The State Department defended the visa decision on free-speech grounds. But that’s hard to square with its history of using visas as a policy tool. There are many examples of elected Latin American officials and military brass being refused travel to the U.S. for reasons that override their rights to express themselves. Two prominent examples come to mind. First, numerous members of the Colombian military—which is under civilian command—and in some cases members of their families, have had their U.S. visas pulled by the State Department merely because the soldiers were accused by left-wing nongovernmental organizations of human-rights violations. Even when acquitted, most never had those visas restored.

Then there was the visa-yanking by the Obama administration when it decided in 2009 that the Honduran Supreme Court was undemocratic because it had ruled that President Manuel Zelaya’s removal from power was constitutional. Team Obama also pulled the visas of members of the interim government, even though it took power in strict adherence to the constitution and with the backing of the major political parties, the Catholic Church and the country’s human-rights ombudsman. Those visas were not returned even when the interim government presided over a free and fair election and left power on schedule.

Only last week did the State Department announce that some—not all—of the victims of this injustice may reapply for entry to the U.S. Over the years, visas have also been pulled for allegations of corruption on the part of elected officials in other countries.

So if the bar that has to be cleared is set by democratic standards, human-rights records and anticorruption, how in heaven’s name did this regime mouthpiece sail into the U.S. while her father is holding an American hostage? The State Department maintains that the official policy restricts access only for “senior [communist] party members and senior members of the government.” Yet Ms. Castro did not travel in the U.S. like a private citizen. She was flacking for her old man and the State Department even gave her a security detail. A department official told me that she was entitled to that as a “child of a head of state.”

This is the kind of thing that makes U.S. presidents look weak in the eyes of tyrants and that seems to be the way Ms. Castro likes it. If Mr. Obama had more backing from Americans, she speculated in her CNN interview, U.S.-Cuba relations could be “as good or better than we had under President Carter.” And isn’t every American just pining for the good old days of Carter foreign policy?

Trust us, given four more years of this Socialist’s sophistry, America will be praying for those good old days!

And in the Follow-Up segment, the WSJ offers additional insight into the overtime the Dimocratic spin machine’s been putting in (see video clip #3 on our home page at www.thedailygouge.com) trying to explain away the Wisconsin Ass-Whuppin’:

The Wisconsin Money Excuse

When liberals lose, it can’t be because their ideas were unpopular.

When a professional athlete decides to leave a team and says, “it’s not about the money,” it’s almost always about the money. In politics the opposite holds: When partisans blame defeat on the money, it’s usually about something else.

Liberals are now blaming money for their rout in Wisconsin last week, especially the 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United. They say that ruling let Governor Scott Walker vastly outraise and outspend Democratic challenger Tom Barrett, which determined the result.

If only they had some evidence. As Michael McConnell points out nearby, Citizens United eased the rules on political giving for both unions and corporations—which may have helped Mr. Barrett more than it did Mr. Walker. The Republican received most of his money from individuals, who have been allowed to donate as much as they want for nearly four decades. Mr. Barrett relied much more on unions, which thanks to Citizens United could and did help him as much as they were able.

Meanwhile, Mr. Walker could accept unlimited individual funds thanks to a Wisconsin law that lets incumbents facing recalls avoid the typical $10,000 limit. Democrats understood this advantage for Mr. Walker when they signed onto the recall. That, too, had nothing to do with Citizens United.

According to CNN’s exit poll, no fewer than 86% of voters said they had made their decision before May, or weeks before ads began saturating the airwaves. This isn’t surprising because Wisconsinites had been taking sides since the collective-bargaining reform brawl began in February 2011. Mr. Walker had the support of 50% or more in most polls for weeks ahead of the election, and most voters said they supported the reforms.

Money does matter in politics, but not as much in high-profile races when the public is paying attention. In this year’s Presidential election, both sides will have more than enough money to compete in the dozen or so swing states. If Democrats want to get a head start on losing in November, they’ll keep griping about the money instead of changing their message.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, as this forward from Conn Carroll details, the man behind the last leader of The Gang That Still Can’t Shoot Straight demonstrates anew why the Tea Party must continue to cleanse the ranks of the GOP:

We need to keep these wind power subsidies, says… Karl Rove?

Karl Rove: like Spider, he’s just a rat….his whole family’s rats….he grew to up be a rat; because a rat has no principles.

I had to double check to be sure, but Backwards Day was on on January 31st, so that doesn’t explain this. Nor do I see any reports of the web site of Business Week being hacked. And as far as I know, Rove doesn’t even have a Linkedin account to phish, so I’m thinking this story is legit. Let’s hear from the man himself:

Renewal of federal tax credits for wind energy can save U.S. jobs and reduce dependence on foreign oil, according to Karl Rove, an adviser to former President George W. Bush. “We’ve got a growing economy that’s increasing energy consumption and wind energy should be part of the solution,” Rove said today on a panel at a wind conference in Atlanta. Extending the so-called production tax credit “should be a priority.”

A bill to extend through 2016 the 2.2-cent-a-kilowatt-hour credit for electricity produced by wind turbines, biomass, geothermal and landfill-gas plants has stalled in congress along with about 100 other expiring tax-related incentives.

It seems an odd time to take a stand like this, particularly given all the coverage on this subject in recent days. As Paul Driessen discovered, tens of billions in subsidies have still not resulted in wind power contributing more than 3% of the nations demands on the electrical grid. Further, wind farms tend to produce the most energy when demand is lowest and the least when demand maxes out.

Further, the more we look into this, the more it looks like a huge cash cow and boondoggle, as Goldman Sachs has set up an entire investment plan to cash in on the government largesse. Some people have a nose for taxpayer dollars when the spigots are opened up and this should be a warning sign at a minimum.

Nobody is saying we can’t have wind energy, but the development phase of this technology should be over by now. If you can put up a wind farm, produce useful power and make money doing so, then God bless. Have at it! But if it’s not profitable by now, I’m not sure what huge breakthrough we’re waiting for which justifies continuing to prop up development on the taxpayer’s dime.

And if you wish to understand Rove’s motivation in choosing this particular place and time to imitate Newt….

….just follow the money….right into Karl’s bank account.

Then there’s today’s contestants in the “Who Do YOU Trust?” segment: first a lying, hypocritical baby killer….

Sebelius: Medicare ‘stronger than ever’ due to healthcare law

….followed by a non-partisan government watchdog:

Trustees: Medicare Will Go Broke in 2016, If You Exclude Obamacare’s Double-Counting

Who do YOU trust?  Take as much time as you need.

On the Lighter Side….

Then there’s this beauty of a bumper sticker from Balls:Finally, we’ll wrap things up with another sordid story ripped from the pages of the Crime Blotter, courtesy today of Bill Meisen and a father no jury will ever vote to convict….

Father kills man sexually abusing his daughter

A Texas father caught a man sexually assaulting his 4-year-old daughter and punched him in the head repeatedly, killing him, authorities said. The father was casually acquainted with the alleged abuser, said Lavaca County Sheriff Micah Harmon. Neither has been publicly identified.

The girl was left inside the family’s house during the social gathering, while other members of her family were tending to horses, the sheriff said….The father returned to the house, caught the man in the act, and stopped him by striking him in the head several times, Harmon said. The man was pronounced dead on the scene, while the daughter was taken to a local hospital in Victoria, Texas, for examinations before being released.

Asked whether they would press charges against the father, the sheriff responded, “You have a right to defend your daughter. He acted in defense of his third person. Once the investigation is completed we will submit it to the district attorney who then submits it to the grand jury, who will decide if they will indict him.”

….particularly not in Texas!  We must confess a certain admiration for the father’s self control.  Had it been our daughter, the authorities would still be trying to explain how the dead man’s scrotum and testicles ended up halfway down his throat.

Magoo