By Bill O'Reilly
As you may know, I wrote the book "Killing Lincoln", to show Americans what true leadership really is. Old Abe put his country above himself, put his ideology on the shelf. He did whatever he had to do to keep the union together and that included all kinds of compromises.
Today in America President Obama is not showing leadership and I encourage the president to take a look back at Lincoln because I know Mr. Obama is a fan. There's no way on earth that President Lincoln would allow the fiscal chaos we have today. As "Talking Points" has stated, this is not a complicated matter. The President and the Democratic Party must agree to cut federal spending. They have to do that.
Yet, the president resists. And now we have automatic spending cuts with a government shutdown looming at the end of this month. If Mitt Romney had defeated President Obama, we wouldn't be in this mess. Yesterday the Governor said this about dealing with the imposed cuts.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROMNEY: I understand from Paul Ryan... I spoke with him just a day or two ago, that he has put forward a proposal to give the President flexibility in moving that money between accounts so we are going to bring the spending down but, you know, you are going to get, Mr. President, the chance to make sure that we don't have long lines at the airport or we don't.
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: But the President says he doesn't want that flexibility.
ROMNEY: And why? Why would you not want to have the flexibility to do what you think is right for the country? The only answer that comes back is that there may be more interest in showing pain in saying see what the other guys did?
Look, this is the country. And it's -- this is America we are talking about at a critical time. And, you know, Nero is fiddling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: Well Romney is correct. President Obama is not trying to solve the budget problem. The President wants to raise taxes and redistribute income. Everything else be damned. That's not leadership. And an honest media should be pounding the president. But it's not. Instead, it is defending him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R), HOUSE SPEARKER: You know listen, we've known about this for 16 months. And yet, even today, there is no plan from Senate Democrats or the White House to replace the sequester.
DAVID GREGORY, NBC NEWS HOST: That's just not true. They have made it very clear as the president just did, that he has a plan that he has put forward that involves entitlement cuts, that involve spending cuts. That you've made a choice as have Republicans, to leave tax loopholes in place and you would rather have those and live with all these...
BOEHNER: Oh David, that's just nonsense. If he had a plan, why wouldn't Senate Democrats go ahead and pass it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: Because there is no plan. There is no specific plan put forth by the president. That's why there is chaos.
Now, let's take a look at the leadership. Mr. Boehner right there, he is on the right side of the issue. He wants to cut federal spending because it's leading the country into bankruptcy. But the Speaker of the House has not appeared on this program and generally doesn't make his case with any authority. Simply put, the American people are not listening to John Boehner, most don't even know who he is.
On the other side, we have Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Does this man inspire confidence? Does he? You know what Reid is like? Your old uncle at Thanksgiving dinner screaming "more gravy, more gravy!" That's Harry Reid, more gravy.
So we, the people, are caught in a terrible situation. We have fiscal chaos and no leadership.
And that's "The Memo."
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