With his usual flair for the dramatic, Current TV’s “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann advised President Barack Obama against striking a compromise with congressional Republicans on the debt ceiling.
“I cannot forecast what will happen politically if you craft a compromise to a manufactured political crisis that includes unnecessary cuts to Social Security and raising the age for Medicare eligibility from 65 to 67,” Olbermann said during Monday’s program, in an ostensible address to the president.
“I find I can’t forecast if I will still be able to support you,” he said.
Of more immediate concern, Olbermann said, are the financial and social problems plaguing the country which the president could alleviate by standing firm in debt negotiations.
“Any true greatness of this nation originates entirely in whatever spark of humanity and selflessness we devote to taking care of the least of us,” Olbermann continued. “Any claim we have to lead, to encourage, to inspire other nations starts with whether we continue to move forward each year, each day, each minute towards a time when we have no hunger in this country, when we have no poverty in this country and we have no old people eating dog food in this country, when we have no patient in this country deciding between meals and medicines.”
“To paraphrase Jackie Robinson, the life of a nation, Mr. President, is not important except in the impact it has on the lives of its people,” he said.
Olbermann also cautioned that Obama would be letting down the American people and himself if he didn’t heed the pundit’s warning.
“If this deal with the Republicans takes a dollar away from those people who do not have a dollar to spare while preserving the millions for those who have millions more — if this deal, sir, keeps intact funding [for] the mechanisms we have for killing people while cutting mechanisms we have for keeping them alive and healthy, then it is a betrayal of everything that makes this country great,” he said.
“And, Mr. President, then it is worse than just a betrayal of all of those who elected you. It is a betrayal of who you are and who you have spent your life becoming. For your presidency, sir, is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”