SurvivalBlog

By: Jeffrey Klein, Political Buzz Examiner
Examiner.com

Key White House personnel have been exiting the Obama administration with increasing regularity, putting great pressure on their ability to cast the exit interviews positively.

Today, the Associated Press exit interview of Melody Barnes, White House Chief Domestic Policy Advisor, was no exception, illustrating just how preposterous the spin can get–when one abandons the sinking Obama Ship of State.

As this is my last article of 2011, I’ve decided to change up the format, by extracting the main excerpts from the article, and then translate what I felt they really meant…or were trying to hide.

AP: Melody Barnes is leaving … at a time when President Obama’s administration is getting little notice for its work on the home front to fix the struggling economy.

JK: Obama and his army of czars and advisors (including Ms. Barnes), are receiving massive attention, as they are primarily responsible for exacerbating the struggling U.S. economy. The widespread anti-business rhetoric, inciting class warfare in wanting to raise taxes on millionaire and billionaire job creators, Obamacare, and a mountain of new regulations are increasing the cost of doing business in the U.S. and raising uncertainty.

AP: Barnes, who will be gone by Tuesday, is quick to point out that there have been many domestic achievements, even though the public is dissatisfied.

MB: “I completely understand what the American public is feeling,” she said in an interview in her tidy West Wing office. “Real people are hurting in a significant way. … At the same time, I’m proud of the things we’ve been able to accomplish over the last few years.”

AP: She tops that list with the early work to stabilize the economy, 21 months of consistent job growth and the president’s long-term investments in education overhaul, an area that became her specialty.

JK: Stabilize the economy? The $800 billion “stimulus bill,” which did not garner a single Republican vote, is viewed by the vast majority of Americans as a complete failure–true, because it added to our budget deficit and national debt, without creating a single job.

Consistent job growth over 21 months? Like Solyndra Solar, the ‘source of high-paying jobs in the future,’ where after just 18 months, 1,200 jobs vanished overnight, along with $535 million in taxpayer cash–with no measurable effect on unemployment.

Finally, “the president’s long-term investments in education overhaul,” highlights Obama’s lack private sector executive experience, rendering he and his administration incapable of creating private sector jobs–not focus on long-term education reforms.

AP: Barnes said, Obama also deserves credit for passage of a health care overhaul, legislation that she had worked on for eight years with [Edward] Kennedy (D-MA), the Massachusetts senator [who] spent his career trying to restructure health care.

JK: Trust me that Obama and the remaining Democrats are receiving the “exclusive” credit for Obamacare, which the majority of Americans roundly rejected from the start; this was a main component of the historic Democrat shellacking in 2010, and will take a leading roll in the presidential election in 2012.

In fact, the Democrats who are up for re-election all over the U.S., are distancing themselves from President Barack Obama and “their” hated healthcare reform law, just like their counterparts did during Jimmy Carter’s re-election bid in 1982—who is polishing up his “worst president in U.S. history” trophy to pass on to President Obama.

AP: There’s also the auto industry bailout, expansion of Pell grants to help fund college education, the end of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays and work to advance civil rights, she said.

JK: The majority of Americans were against the auto company bailouts. Expanding Pell grants was another useless microscopic distraction. So few gay people in the military rendered ”don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal irrelevant in the near term–except for a small, vociferous part of Obama’s very “anti-military” voting base. And, the last thing the U.S. needed was more “civil rights” activities.

Three years later, about 14 million Americans are still desperate to find a good paying job.

AP: She is considering offers in the private sector, but hasn’t disclosed what those are.

JK: She has seen the terrifying internal polling numbers, indicating a total federal government takeover by Republicans in November 2012, whose reduction in the size and scope of federal government, will eliminate her job, so she is abandoning the “Obama ship” while there is still time.

Upon closer scrutiny, Ms. Barnes was quoted so rarely, it seems as though she was merely a “stunt-double,” so the Associated Press could again act as a de facto White House Public Relations arm, by creating most of the [positive] content for Ms. Barnes exit interview article.

Copyright (c) 2011 by Jeffrey Klein