I don't like linking to Politico, but this is worth it. President Obama hit back at the Republicans and tea party for their obvious contradictions and hypocrisy.
In an interview with POLITICO, the president said: “I think it’s fair to say, if six months ago, before this spill had happened, I had gone up to Congress and I had said we need to crack down a lot harder on oil companies and we need to spend more money on technology to respond in case of a catastrophic spill, there are folks up there, who will not be named, who would have said this is classic, big-government overregulation and wasteful spending.”
The president also implied that anti-big government types such as Tea Party activists were being hypocritical on the issue.
“Some of the same folks who have been hollering and saying ‘do something’ are the same folks who, just two or three months ago, were suggesting that government needs to stop doing so much,” Obama said. “Some of the same people who are saying the president needs to show leadership and solve this problem are some of the same folks who, just a few months ago, were saying this guy is trying to engineer a takeover of our society through the federal government that is going to restrict our freedoms.”
Right. When we were looking at statistics showing thousands of deaths per month due to a lack of affordable health insurance, the Republicans were telling us that healthcare reform was a government takeover. This coming week, Chris Matthews is doing his "Rise of the New Right" series. Here's how he ought to summarize: the new right believes in nothing except for the opposite of what the black president believes. That's it.