If in the face of lunacy, thuggery, unreasonableness, gross injustice, and corruption, as a president, if you fail to use the bully pulpit to simply speak the truth, then you are either complicit, weak, or fearful. Either way, it does nothing to help end the injustice, the corruption, and thuggery.
Why not mention how Wall Street looted the country's treasure, and that, in combination with unfunded and unjustified wars, and massive tax cuts for the rich, and the fact that major multinational corporation either don't pay taxes or are not paying a "fair share," is the cause for the current "fiscal situation?"
Why use their frame of reference and talk about "deficits" and even entertain the concept of a "balance approach," which alludes to the possibility of cutting spending on earned benefits (i.e. Social Security, Medicare), or social safety net programs for the poor?
What the president does, and what the Democratic party establishment does is very detrimental to the country, when they willingly choose to frame issues using billionaires-funded memes.
This is especially so because the liberal/progressive agenda is the only possible agenda for a sane, successful, and fair society. To have a liberal/progressive agenda simply means to approach every issue, without fail, from a common sense and empirical approach, be it economics, law, environment, entrepreneurship, business, education, health--everything.
There are not two sides to the issues: Societies either move forward in enlightenment, and knowledge, and fairness and justice, or they regress to injustice, ignorance, exploitation, and enslavement of the population.
This being the unadulterated and unquestionable case, then why does the Democrats and much of the current liberal/progressive establishment chooses to accept the billionaires-paid-for mass reference/frame memes?
This is especially troubling because we have a situation where honest-go-goodness lunatics, fascist thugs (in the form of the cult-like current Republican party establishment, the teabaggers, and many of the assorted miscreants who make up their base) are constantly putting out outright vitriolic venom into the public airwaves, turning the world upside down; demonizing and mischaracterizing the liberal/progressive agenda.
So from the Left we get weakness, the use of language that falls within the framing by right-wing think tanks, equivocation, whining, all in the misguided attempt to "look and sound reasonable" to the American people.
But there is a total failure to speak the truth, clearly and firmly, which sends a message weakness and equivocation, which does not really reassures the population.
On the Right, you get a jack-booted lockstep discipline in their messaging, a type of vicious and relentless commitment to achieving their goals, and an ability to lie, distort, misinform people, right to their faces, in a very blunt and thuggish way.
On the question of whether he will let the Republicans shut down the government over debt ceiling negotiations, the President basically said that that's their prerogative; that if the Republicans decide to shut down the government, then it will be their responsibility, and that the American people will take notice.
This again indicates that he fails to understand the level of suffering to which much of the population has been subjected to after years of outright thievery and looting by Wall Street and multinational corporations.
Yes, he sees the next steps... The Republicans shut down the government, things become chaotic, social security checks are not mailed, there is massive disruption, and eventually the pain suffered by the people will get to be so much that they will make the Republican pay for it.
Of course, another approach would be to clearly explain what is happening, to talk about hostage-taking, and about how the Republican thugs are wanting to inflict terror to the American people, and that he will use every avenue in his power to prevent these thugs from inflicting more pain, and that will include considering the application of the Fourteen Amendment.
This whole thing is an outrage... What is worst: What vicious thugs do and the consequences of their actions, or the weakness, equivocation, and failure to speak the truth and confront wrongdoing and injustice head on when you have the power to do so?