But is anyone listening?
(Reuters) - President Barack Obama pressed his case on Saturday for achieving deficit reduction, in part by ending tax breaks and singling out hedge fund managers, oil companies and billionaires to take the hit. [...]
"Now, it would be nice if we could keep every tax break, but we can't afford them," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
"Because if we choose to keep those tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, or for hedge fund managers and corporate jet owners, or for oil and gas companies pulling in huge profits without our help - then we'll have to make even deeper cuts somewhere else." [...]
"We've got to say to a student, 'You don't get a college scholarship.' We have to say to a medical researcher, 'You can't do that cancer research.' We might have to tell seniors, 'You have to pay more for Medicare,'" he said.
"That isn't right, and it isn't smart. We've got to cut the deficit, but we can do that while making investments in education, research and technology that actually create jobs."
If you were just tuning in over the last couple of days, you may think the Whitehouse is just now taking the discussion in another direction. You may believe that President Obama has not been making these same kinds of arguments for months. You would be mistaken though, and there is nothing extraordinary about the words coming out of the president's mouth over the last several days.
It may be fun to claim that the administration has finally found a set of balls, but it's also disingenuous because the administration has never lacked a set. The message coming out of the Whitehouse has been entirely consistent, but consistency is not in the best interests of the Very Liberal Media. Consistency is boring. Consistency does not engage viewers. The horse-race does.
There are characteristics of the administration which may draw legitimate criticism, but a lack of consistency is not one of them. Just because the so-called Liberal Media chooses not to cover the majority of a liberal president's remarks does not mean he isn't out there making them.