Did Steve Beshear really tell the President to “GET OFF OUR BACKS” yesterday?

As Joe reported earlier, Steve Beshear put out a press release yesterday after meeting the President of the United States and giving POTUS a piece of his mind.

Let’s consider some highlights:

The Governor asked the President to work with Congress to immediately authorize federal emergency funds to repair the Sherman Minton Bridge….

“I called on the President to expedite funding for repairs to keep our families working, and reminded him that deteriorating infrastructure is just one more example of what happens when Washington keeps playing partisan games and ignores the real needs of citizens. We cannot afford to keep delaying repairs that stymie economic growth.”

Again, as Joe points out, the very notion of Steve Beshear “calling” on President Obama to “expedite” anything is ridiculous, and the fact that Steve Beshear then goes on to claim that he “reminded” the President about the danger of “partisan games” is just Steve’s latest embarrassment to all Kentucky Democrats.

And if you’re one of those Democrats who reads this blog and, on posts like this, shakes your head and wishes we’d shut up and get off the Governor’s back… well, tough luck. Make your excuses for this:

The Governor also reminded the President that the EPA’s continued and unexplained shifting of regulations regarding coal mining jeopardizes thousands of Kentucky jobs and causes detrimental ripple effects in other state job sectors – especially manufacturing.

“Coal is not only a vital national resource, but coal mining also supports thousands of Kentucky families,” said Gov. Beshear. “These arbitrary changes in EPA guidelines cause unnecessary and costly delays in permitting, which compromise jobs and investments. It’s time for the EPA to end these unpredictable policy swings and work with us on a reasonable policy that protects our families.”

Riiight.

So Governor Beshear “reminded” the President about the EPA’s “unexplained” regulations (“They’re not unexplained, you idiot,” you can almost hear the President responding) and the thousands of Kentucky lives… oh what’s the point?

Why keep up this charade?

Why is Steve Beshear even trying to lie about this?

How much time did it take you to read all that? How much time would it take you to tell the President he needs to take infrastructure investments seriously and that he needs to do something about the economy and, oh yeah, “why are you trying to destroy Kentucky? GET OFF OUR BACKS?”

According to the White House Press pool reports:

• Air Force One touched down in Cincinnati at 2:11PM
• The President left the plane 10 minutes later (2:21PM)
• Waiting at the base of steps, the President was greeted by three men — Steve Beshear, Covington Mayor Denny Bowman and Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory
• The President “shook hands and chatted briefly with each before heading off to work the rope line.”
• The President took the stage in downtown Cincinnati at 2:55PM

Let’s say the drive from the airport to the event took 15-20 minutes… the Pool reports the motorcade slowed considerably as they crossed the bridge into Cincinnati. Let’s say, also, that the President had maybe five minutes between actually arriving at the site and then taking the stage.

That means, roughly speaking, there was 9 minutes between President Obama walking down the steps from Air Force One and departing the airport.

In that 9 minutes, the President of the United States has to work a rope line and have three full blown conversations… giving Beshear, hmm… about 1:30 to maybe two minutes to cram all this information in:

1) Insult the President’s intelligence;

2) Tell him how important infrastructure is even though he’s been talking about it for weeks;

3) Insinuate he’s not taking it seriously;

4) Accuse him of playing partisan politics;

5) Get in POTUS’s face and yell about the EPA;

6) Call regultaions “unexplained” and “arbitrary”

7) Finally, drone on about a bunch of stuff that doesn’t address the environmental, health or true economic impacts of Coal.

Maybe it happened.

Maybe Steve Beshear actually said all that.

Maybe.

Maybe he’s been taking speech lessons:

Or… maybe he’s, how can we put this… stretching the truth.

Should we just give him a break? Should we just take his word for it?

Sure… some might suggest we just shut up and support the governor.

But to them we say…