Wait, Wait – Hold On Just A Minute…

…in our rush to cover the bases on President Obama’s Fox News appearance yesterday, we only touched on the poor advocacy he offered on behalf of Mary Landrieu’s Louisiana Purchase deal to fix the glitch in federal FMAP funding. We didn’t quite catch how bad he really was…

(Hat tip: Breitbart.tv)

In case you didn’t pick this up, here’s a transcript:

OBAMA: I am certain that we’ve made sure, for example, that any burdens on states are alleviated, when it comes to what they’re going to have to chip in to make sure that we’re giving subsidies to small businesses, and subsidies to individuals, for example.

BAIER: So the Connecticut deal is still in?

OBAMA: So that’s not — that’s not going to be something that is going to be in this final package. I think the same is true on all of these provisions. I’ll give you some exceptions though. Something that was called a special deal was for Louisiana. It was said that there were billions — millions of dollars going to Louisiana, this was a special deal. Well, in fact, that provision, which I think should remain in, said that if a state has been affected by a natural catastrophe, that has created a special health care emergency in that state, they should get help. Louisiana, obviously, went through Katrina, and they’re still trying to deal with the enormous challenges that were faced because of that.

(CROSS TALK)

OBAMA: That also — I’m giving you an example of one that I consider important. It also affects Hawaii, which went through an earthquake. So that’s not just a Louisiana provision. That is a provision that affects every state that is going through a natural catastrophe. Now I have said that there are certain provisions, like this Nebraska one, that don’t make sense. And they needed to be out. And we have removed those. So, at the end of the day, what people are going to be able to say is that this legislation is going to be providing help to small businesses and individuals, across the board, in an even handed way, and providing people relief from a status quo that’s just not working.

BAIER: OK, the Florida deal, in or out?

OBAMA: The Florida deal —

BAIER: Paying for Medicare Advantage, exempting 800,000 Floridians from —

OBAMA: My understanding is that whatever is going to be done on Medicare is going to apply across the board to all states.

Two things here. First, Obama is subject to the exact same criticism on the Louisiana Purchase that Landrieu is – namely, if providing the state with $300 million to help fix the flawed Federal Medical Assistance Percentage formula for Medicaid is such a good idea, then why wasn’t it inserted into the Omnibus or Stimulus bills last year when Gov. Bobby Jindal first asked for it? After all, the stimulus was more than $800 billion, the vast majority of which was to prop up state and local governments. Obama brags about all the jobs the stimulus bill saved, and when pressed about which jobs those were he’s talking about cops, teachers, firefighters and other public employees. Well, if that’s the case, alleviating Louisiana’s FMAP burden which Obama now inarticulately advocates constitutes righting a wrong would certainly qualify.

And second, what earthquake in Hawaii? There hasn’t been a major earthquake in Hawaii since 1975. Is Obama talking about the earthquake in Chile which brought the surf up in Hawaii a couple of weeks ago? Is he that out of touch?

Or does he know something we don’t?

Perhaps this is horribly inappropriate, but that apparent gaffe is an eerie reminder of a spoof campaign ad which made the rounds in 2008…

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