Government by Histrionics - Part 1

The President's sequester argument is the histrionic art form raised to a new level.  Is it any wonder Barack Obama doesn't want the Press covering anything more in depth than his frequent campaign speeches, and his wife's appearances on the Oscars?   He artfully obfuscates the issues by blaming others for his actions it when politically expedient.  The media then follows the meme of the moment and spreads the message on demand, providing impenetrable cover for his misdirections.  No other candidate could compete with such free advertising and message delivery. 

According to Bob Woodward, the sequestration originated in the White House, and was championed by Barack Obama in one of the singular times he has gotten involved in real presidential work, for more than a minute.
From HotAir.com

My [Bob Woodward] extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.
Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.
Nabors has told others that they checked with the president before going to see Reid. A mandatory sequester was the only action-forcing mechanism they could devise. Nabors has said, “We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them” — Reid and the Republicans — to adopt the sequester. “It really was the only thing we had.

But yet,  15 months later, Barack Obama is claiming

The sequester is not something that I've proposed. It is something that Congress has proposed.”
— President Obama, in the third presidential debate, Oct. 22, 2012

Even the Washington Post acknowledges this to be a lie in the fanciful "whopper" category, giving it the maximum 4 Pinocchio rating.

This was a case where the Republicans did what the public voiced demands for, they "compromised", giving Barack Obama what he asked for.  Now Barack Obama, in a phenomenal reversal of intent, is blaming them for the sequester.  Barack Obama is basically a one trick pony, his only solution is "tax the wealthy"
Text from Obama Speech

Unfortunately, it appears that Republicans in Congress have decided that instead of compromising — instead of asking anything of the wealthiest Americans — they would rather let these cuts fall squarely on the middle class.

What will he do when he reaches taxing "the wealthy" at 100% and can't get anymore from that well? It has been demonstrated that even at the "fair" level of taking everything from the wealthy is still far less than the $1.2 trillion he needs to continue his profligate spending habit,  and it gets even worse when you look at adding entitlement growth.
Presidents Speech Text more histrionics

These are the questions Republicans in Congress need to ask themselves. And I’m hopeful they’ll change their minds. Because the American people have worked too hard for too long to see everything they’ve built undone by partisan recklessness in Washington.

Barack Obama has spent weeks flitting around the country demagoguing the sequester.  Leadership requires difficult decisions and skills that have been demonstrated by few Republicans and far fewer Democrats.  We cannot continue to follow inadequate solutions lasting but a moment. They must be solutions to actually solve problems, not yield "shovel ready projects" only digging us deeper.  The sequester does not cut the full budget.  There will be more spent in 2013 than in 2012, and in each year following. President Barack Obama lays out a demagogic array of dismissals and firings of police, firemen, and others as he parades political props behind him at each stump speech.  This is again, histrionics played for a willing media and misguided public.  Many of the people he targets are local government employees, not federal, with the intent to make results as painful and undesirable as possible.  A plan much like Governor Mark Dayton's, in Minnesota's manufactured budget crisis. The decision about how how it affects people is entirely within the Presidents control.  He can make it as painful as he wants, or make the needed decisions to curb his appetite for growing government.  Its his choice.