The Obama administration is beginning to look like one of those clown cars. The door flies open and dozens of clowns pour out.
Christin Romer, the latest clown and chairwoman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, attempted to snow host David Gregory on Sunday’s Meet The Press. Gregory wasn’t buying.
GREGORY: So back then during the campaign when Senator McCain talked about the strong fundamentals of the economy, it was then-candidate Obama and his team that roundly criticized McCain, saying he was out of touch, he didn’t get it, he didn’t understand how bad the economy was. And yet now the president’s talking about the strong fundamentals of the economy. So what’s different between then, the campaign, and now, except for the fact that the economy’s gotten dramatically worse?
ROMER: I think when the president says he’s focusing on fundamentals, what he means is — is we’re focusing on fixing the fundamentals; that we’ve always said we’re not looking at the ups and downs of the stock market, we’re looking for those crucial indicators: when are jobs turning around; when are sales turning around; when do we see consumers coming to life? That’s the kind of thing that — certainly that I’m looking at in terms of when’s the economy going to be doing better and when can we see some hope.
GREGORY: Are the fundamentals of this economy sound?
Clarification: This is Krusty the Clown. The one of Meet the Press was Christi the Clown.
ROMER: Well, of course the fundamentals are sound in the sense that the American workers are sound, we have a good capital stock, we have good technology. We know that, that temporarily we’re in a mess, right? We’ve seen huge job loss. We’ve seen very large falls in GDP. So certainly in the short run we’re in a — in a bad situation.
GREGORY: All right, but then what’s different between now and then, when the economy was in even better shape than it is now, when McCain was saying the fundamentals were strong and then-candidate Obama criticized him?
ROMER: I think — again, I think what we’re saying is that the, you know, where we are today is obviously not good. We have a plan in place to get to a good place. I think that’s the crucial — a fundamentally crucial difference, is to make sure that you have put in place all of the comprehensive programs that’ll get us back to those fundamentals.
Quick. Somebody tell the ring master to bring out the elephants. Because the clowns are bombing.
