This past Friday night in Washington, a New York Mets pitcher threw the type of pitch President Obama must use in his march to stop any new proposals to cut Social Security if he plans to make it through the game of the deficit talks and his reelection. In the recent past the president and his teams have pitched a slew of failed curveballs that would cut our Social Security. The number 43 Mets pitcher R.A. Dickey helped beat the Nationals 7-3 with his slow velocity, highly unpredictable knuckleball. The 44th president and his multitude of committees have taken an approach to cutting the deficit that replicates a tied baseball game, with no end in sight. Could knuckle balls from a president battling to win the game, save the economy, and win reelection save the tied ball game called the deficit debate? Let's take a look at the tape.
R.A. Dickey has been pitching great this season, and has the best earned run average of the starters on the Mets but you wouldn't know it by looking at his record of 7-11, which reflects injuries on the Mets but also the poorest run support from hitters out of all the Mets starting pitchers. It's unclear to Mets fans why Dickey hasn't gotten the run support he so deserves, just as it's unclear to the general public why we haven't gotten the support Social Security deserves from the administration.
If the president throws a Social Security curveball that cuts our benefits to the GOP team trying to beat him, he ought to get ready not to receive any run support, not just from Democrats and the left, but also from the independents and moderate Republicans his advisers are so intent on courting again. By attempting a pitch that doesn't appeal to his base, independent voters, and moderate Republicans, he may lose the game, the season, and ultimately his Presidency.
But President Obama can still throw an amazing Dickey-like pitch to the GOP's deficit, defeat the nonsense, not cut Social Security benefits, and win reelection. If Obama fights for Social Security, America's fans will cheer for him and we'll give him all the run support he needs to win in 2012.
Social Security has remained one of America's most successful programs for 76 years. Before it existed and since it's existed, Wall Street and right-wing conservatives have been telling us how much it stinks, hoping we might one day believe such lies through repetition. Even popular Republican President Dwight Eisenhower recognized how cutting it would be plain "stupid." But that's exactly what each of the deficit groups have attempted to do, each throwing their own curveball that would lead to Social Security cuts.
The president started his deficit pitching rotation with the grizzled, often irrelevant old-timers Bowles and Simpson, who proposed to cut Social Security with the indifference of players who knew their time had passed. He then hoped the journeymen Gang of 6 could take on the deficit, but the bipartisan group of men never seemed to materialize on the playing field. Obama's team, "America," never got far in the batting order without loading the bases against the "GOP Deficit" team, which lead up to another call to the bullpen. An enthusiastic reliever, Vice President Biden came charging on to the field to lead his bipartisan "gang of dudes" with every intention to save the game, and no ability to corral the Republicans who calmly watched every one of his pitches thrown for balls float by and hit every strike for an intentional foul ball, upping the pitch count until Biden's arm had vanished.
Then came the president himself, rolling up his sleeves and bringing back the long vanished player-coach, determined to get the save for America, but giving the GOP a few hits and intentional walks in the process so he could get the job done. He's out on the field and he appears determined to win for America, at any cost to his future as a pitcher and as our president, but the fans are hopeful he'll win for his future and ours.
The president even told us about his curveball to the GOP, who seem determined to fight against America, 1 minute in to this video, when he acknowledges that he'd offered the Republican Speaker a deal to cut Social Security, which suggests he may throw the same bad curve again if the Supercommittee wants to take it up.
In the next couple of weeks President Obama may let loose with another Social Security curveballl, telling us we need a COLA cut for Social Security. But America isn't certain whether player-coach Obama would put the important program on the chopping block again for the Supercommittee and the GOP Deficit. This pitch to the GOP Deficit leads to one place--a lost game for the president, and a lost future for Democrats. But a well-placed knuckleball that leaves Social Security out of the ball game and out of the deficit talks would help America and Obama win. If the president throws a slow, hanging knuckleball that's tough for Republicans to hit but that his own team can cheer for, he'll win the hearts of Americans including Democrats, independents and reasonable Republicans, whether the Washington Republicans try to screw over America again or not with attempted cuts to Social Security.