President Obama at a fundraiser for Patty Murray:
They spent almost a decade driving the economy into a ditch. I mean, think about it, if this — if the economy was a car and they drove it into the ditch. (Laughter.) And so me and Patty, and a bunch of others, we go down there and we put on our boots and we’re pushing and shoving. And it’s muddy and there are bugs and we’re sweating — (laughter) — and shoving, pushing hard. And they’re all standing there sipping Slurpees — (laughter) — and watching and — “you’re not pushing hard enough.†“That’s not the right way to push.†(Pretends to sip a Slurpee.) (Laughter and applause.)
So finally, finally, Patty and I and everybody, we finally get the car up on level ground. We’re about to go forward. And these guys come and tap us on the shoulder, and they say, “We want the keys back.†(Laughter.)
You can’t have the keys back. You don’t know how to drive. (Applause.) You don’t know how to drive. (Applause.) You can’t have them back. (Applause.) Can’t have them back. You can’t have them back. We are trying to go forward. We do not want to go backwards — into the ditch again.
You notice, when you want to move forward in your car, what do you do? You put your car in “D.†(Applause.) When you want to go backwards, you put it in “R†— (applause) — back into the ditch. Keep that in mind in November. (Applause.) That’s not a coincidence. (Laughter.)
Maybe I’m just breathing too much of The Washington Post’s air, but that last bit bugs me. The driving analogy? Fine. It’s a colorful way of making a fair point about Republican mismanagement of the economy. But that bit about “D” and “R”? It doesn’t feel presidential. It’s more like the sort of joke that your liberal grandmother would forward you. It’s lame.