An unprecedented use of unprecedented
From politico, an unprecedented story on the preced….. er, president:
Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action.”
What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May.
But others the president wins merely on a technicality, and several clearly already have precedents.
and…
Obama has said he “took office amid unprecedented economic turmoil” and that the situation demanded “unprecedented international cooperation” and resulted in his signing of the “unprecedented” Recovery Act. Yet it seems the Great Depression and the New Deal might be considered precedents for the current economic crisis and the $787 billion stimulus plan.
And Obama’s promise of “an unprecedented effort to root out waste and inefficiency” sounded a lot like promises of past presidents.
“I believe the Congress and the American people approve my goals of economy and efficiency,” President Lyndon B. Johnson told Congress in 1965. “I believe they are as opposed to waste as I am. We can and will eliminate it.”
and…
“It says how very unique he feels he is,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked in the Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Hess described Obama as “a man who sees himself as unprecedented in every way … given his background — his mother, his father, where he grew up, how he became president of the United States.”
and…
“It comes close to a certain arrogance,” Hughes said, “as if this president has done things that no other president has ever done before — except that they have done them before.”
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Comments
Pat, I think you’re upset because the GOP is unpresidented.
For more pressing matters, should I add giblets to the gravy even though some people don’t like them? Please don’t suggest I make two separate batches, because I regret that I have yet only one gravy boat to give for my party. I say put em in, and that people should be more tolerant of giblets, and give them a chance. The wife says by adding them, I’ll be forcing a very unpolular gravy upon our guests who maintain traditional, non-giblet gravy notions of this great American holiday. I remind her that I’ve been elected to cook the turkey and therefore my ladel sets the gravy agenda. She’s accused me of being a giblet socialist, and is organizing certain inlaws to protest my gravy plan. I’ve cautioned guests that they are either with me or against me in this time of gravy, and if they aren’t willing to pick through a few gibbys for the sake of added and delicious moisture, then the terrorists win. It’s getting to the point, I’ve threatened to just order chinese. Pat, please help.
To Gibby, or not to Gibby.
Maybe Sarah will defeat him in 2012? Let’s hope someone does!