Sequester Saturday: Will Obama Now Claim Ownership?

The Day Dawned a Little Brighter Today…

…because last night, President Obama signed an order directing federal agencies to implement the sequester cuts.


Reading that headline/lede over at Powerline, I had a Newtonian moment of enlightment. Or perhaps what they would have called in the old days a flash of prophecy.

The "sequester" is now underway. A few national parks will close early, the government will be a little less diligent than usual in enforcing the law, the military will have to furlough some of its civilian workforce.

And for the 99%, life will go on as usual. And in fact, the economy may even get a little bit better, as some sectors finally see the nation begin its necessary crawl-back to fiscal sanity, and act upon it, via investment and hiring.

And Barack Obama, fresh off of warning the nation that “every time that we get a piece of economic news” in the coming months, that “economic news could have been better” if not for Republicans’ failure to act, will have to find a new tactic.

And he will.

Obama will campaign (because that's all he ever does) as the first president in history to sign legislation forcing cutbacks in the budget, and will take credit for any "green economic shoots" that result.  He will pound his chest and brag about his "balanced approach" - raising taxes in January, cutting spending in March - and demand that the nation elect more Democrats in 2014 so there will be less resistance to his agenda of prosperity.

And the media will dutifully forget every bit of distance Obama desperately tried to put between himself and the sequester, and report what was once the truth, then a lie, as the truth again: That the sequester was in fact Obama's idea.  The last four weeks - in which the president denied any knowledge of the sequester, demonized Republicans for "inventing it", and painted apocalyptic pictures of what would happen upon its enactment - will be whitewashed out of existence by an entire army of Winston Smiths, working for our modern-day Ministry of Truth.


And the American people will buy it, and wipe the Republicans out in 2014.

Bet on it.