HATCHET MAN:

Obama Scoffed At McCain's Spending Freeze Proposal During Campaign ( Sam Stein, Jan 25, 2010, Huffington Post)

One particularly tough attack, however, was delivered in Obama's own words -- in the form of a video compilation showing the president scoffing at just such a proposal in three successive presidential campaign debates. The video was posted quickly on YouTube.

"The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel. There are some programs that are very important that are underfunded," Obama says in his first debate against Republican candidate John McCain, who was pushing a spending freeze.

"That is an example of an unfair burden sharing," Obama says of McCain's proposal in the second debate. "That's using a hatchet to cut the federal budget. I want to use a scalpel so that people who need help are getting help and those of us like myself and Senator McCain who don't need help aren't getting it. That is how we make sure that everybody is willing to make a few sacrifices."

In the UR's defense, having never run anything bigger than the Harvard Law Review, he may have imagined governing would be like surgery,

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 26, 2010 7:16 PM