McConnell disagrees with Paul?s claim that Obama?s BP criticism is ?un-American.?
On Friday, GOP Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul told ABC News that the Obama administration’s promise to keep a “boot heel on the throat of BP” was “really un-American.” “I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault,” said Paul. “Instead of […]
On Friday, GOP Kentucky Senate candidate Rand Paul told ABC News that the Obama administration’s promise to keep a “boot heel on the throat of BP” was “really un-American.” “I think it’s part of this sort of blame game society in the sense that it’s always got to be someone’s fault,” said Paul. “Instead of the fact that maybe sometimes accidents happen.” On CNN last night, John King asked Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who supported Paul’s primary opponent, if he agreed with Paul’s “un-American” comment. McConnell said he did not:
KING: One of the things Rand Paul has said that has generated quite a bit of controversy, as you know, is he said that he found some of President Obama’s criticism of B.P. after the oil spill to be un-American. Do you agree with that?
MCCONNELL: I think the criticism of B.P. is obviously well-founded. There’s no question that B.P. or the two other companies involved in this drilling are responsible for what happened. And the government now is subjected appropriately to have questions about what its role was, and not only in approving the drill site but also in approving the spill response plan which was filed with MMS, the Mineral Management Service. So, there’s plenty of blame to go around between the government and B.P. And I don’t — I don’t — I don’t say that in any way what B.P. has done is excusable.
Later in the interview, McConnell chastised Paul’s post-primary gaffes, saying, “I think he’s said quite enough for the time being in terms of national press coverage.” Watch it:
McConnell isn’t the only GOP senator to disagree with Paul’s attack on criticism of BP. Yesterday, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), a supporter of the oil industry, said that anyone who “doesn’t get angry at what has happened has no emotion.” “And I can see where the Secretary is coming from,” said Murkowski, referencing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, who first made the comment about keeping a “boot heel on the throat of BP.”
Gingrich Attacks And Defends Bank Bailouts In The Same Interview
Newt Gingrich recently sat down with fivethirtyeight.com for an interview promoting his new book To Save America in which he argues that America is being taken over by a “secular socialist machine.” Fivethirtyeight’s Tom Schaller asked about the 2008 bank bailouts, noting that some have called it a form of “corporate socialism.” In response, Gingrich […]
Newt Gingrich recently sat down with fivethirtyeight.com for an interview promoting his new book To Save America in which he argues that America is being taken over by a “secular socialist machine.” Fivethirtyeight’s Tom Schaller asked about the 2008 bank bailouts, noting that some have called it a form of “corporate socialism.” In response, Gingrich attacked the Bush bailout and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson for implementing it:
GINGRICH: I feel very strongly about that. I said at that time that I thought Henry Paulson should not have been Treasury Secretary. I thought it was totally wrong for the former chairman of Goldman Sachs to be funneling billions of dollars from the taxpayers to Goldman Sachs. And I have said over and over, you can’t have capitalism on the way up and socialism on the way down because you get socialism both ways.
Later in the interview, Schaller asked Gingrich what he thinks of President Bush, “under whom the first $3 trillion budget and first $1 trillion deficit was passed.” This time, Gingrich had some very different things to say about the bailouts. The former Speaker defended Bush’s tenure, adding that he had no choice but to push taxpayer money on the nation’s largest banks:
GINGRICH: I think that he was very sincere in his desire to protect America. I think he was very sincere in his basic conservative social values. I think he began his Administration with a real commitment on lower taxes and more economic growth, precisely in the Reagan model. And I think that late in his Administration that he was frankly worn down by the bureaucracies in Washington. […]
And then I think when the crisis hit in the fall of 2008 everybody panicked. Candidly, there was a period there when you had the Federal Reserve chairman and the Secretary of the Treasury saying, “If we don’t do X, Y and Z, the entire world economy is going to collapse.” That’s pretty good grounds for stopping and trying to do something. It’s easy for people to say, “Well, I’d rather have risked a world depression.” But most of the people I talked to in the private sector at the time were really worried about the system freezing up totally.
So in the very same interview, Gingrich attacks the bailouts to play to the anti-government Tea Party crowd, but later justifies them to defend Bush.
But at least Gingrich is consistent on one thing: being inconsistent about his position on the bailouts. When Congress was debating the bailout legislation, he first urged the GOP “in the strongest language possible” to vote against it, but later that day, he said he was “trying to help get it through.” A month later, he urged Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — who was running for president at the time — to distance himself from it.
