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On Sunday, President Obama honored the tradition of presidential interviews being given to the network broadcasting the Super Bowl. Rights for the 2011 edition were held by Fox, and Bill O’Reilly was selected as the interviewer. As might have been expected, the interview that aired before the game was an irritating showcase of rudeness, where Pompous Bill spent 15 minutes interrupting the President (43 times in all) and trying to trip him up.

O’Reilly’s questions started on the topic of Mubarak and Egypt, and the President fielded each of them adeptly, in spite of O’Reilly’s repeated interruptions and attempts to box him into a corner. Having failed to get a reaction on Egypt, O’Reilly moved seamlessly to health care, but only after quickly planting his own opinion on the Muslim Brotherhood: “Those are tough boys, the Muslim Brotherhood. I wouldn’t want them anywhere near that government. Federal judge in Florida said, your health care law is unconstitutional.”

After a brief back and forth on the fate of the healthcare law under the review of the Supreme Court, Mr. Bill took the conversation where he really wanted to drive a stake. Loosely quoting the Wall Street Journal that depicted President Obama as a “determined man of the left whose goal is to redistribute much larger levels of income across society,” O’Reilly asked for a reaction. The president tried to dodge the question, but O’Reilly pressed, “Do you deny that you are a man who wants to redistribute wealth?”

Amazingly, President Obama stepped into BillO’s snare. “Absolutely,” he answered, denying that he wanted to redistribute wealth, and he supported his denial with the fact that he had lowered taxes. O’Reilly pressed again, “But the entitlements that you championed do redistribute wealth in the sense that they provide insurance coverage for 40 million people that don’t have it,” and rather than reframing the issue, the President accepted the pat conservative spin and went directly to defending “Obamacare.”

Make no mistake about it, even though the President held his ground from that point forward arguing certain points regarding healthcare, he missed the opportunity to reassert his previously stated position on taxation of the rich and actually helped to fortify the notion of taxation as redistribution of wealth. As relaxed and articulate as he seemed, President Obama allowed himself to fall into the favorite trap of conservatives — to be cast as a “big government liberal.”

Why Democrats never reject this framing with a legitimate picture of reality, one that’s based on facts and consistent with history, is beyond me. One would think that their only problem would be which conservative myths to refute, and in what order.

Taking on the charge “Big Government” first, it would be a simple task for Democrats to start by offering any one of a number of factual arguments. Each would prove that, to the extent there is a party of fiscal irresponsibility and huge deficits, it’s the Republican Party.

They might base their argument on the debt to GDP ratio resulting from each presidential administration. Going back to the 1970s, that effort would show that Nixon/Ford increased the ratio by .2%; Carter decreased it by 3.3%; Reagan ramped it up by 20.6% and Bush Sr. by another 15%; Clinton brought the ratio back in the right direction, improving it by 9.7%, and GW Bush gave it all back, skyrocketing debt upward and increasing the ratio by 27.1%. The truth of the matter is that all presidents from Truman on have reduced the gross federal debt, except Reagan and both Bushes.

Perhaps pure budget discipline would be a better meter, thereby eliminating the general economy as a variable. Using that metric, one would only have to point out that over the course of the past 100 years, of the 6 presidents presiding over the largest increases in federal spending, 5 were Republicans. Reagan grew the federal budget by 21.9%, and Bush Jr. by 32.2%, both while reducing federal revenues through huge tax cuts — which tends to amplify deficits.

The inescapable truth is that hanging the label of “Big Government” on Democrats is possibly the most unbelievable public relations coup of modern times. It has absolutely no basis in fact. The records show clearly that the Democrats have consistently been more fiscally responsible, and that any connection between the Republicans and small or efficient government is pure myth.

But as flawed as President Obama’s defense of the record was in allowing O’Reilly to paint him as a “big government liberal,” it pales when compared to accepting the paradigm of “redistribution of wealth.” This is classical conservative framing of an issue in order to paint their distorted view of reality.

According to conservative dogma, wealth is earned through the market and later redistributed through taxation and government spending. It has sort of a common sense ring to it, as does the extension of the paradigm — that when the government taxes, it takes what belongs to citizens. Of course, as with all simplistic arguments designed to promote a given agenda, the model presented is fundamentally flawed.

The fact of the matter is that ALL monetary exchanges represent redistribution of wealth, and the government plays a part in each and every one. The issue isn’t whether or not the government should make rules that impact the redistribution of wealth; it does so by default. The question is “should the rules favor upward or downward redistribution,” and on that topic there is a distinct, if shrinking, difference between the two major parties.

Government policies that allow tax advantages for multinational corporations that offshore jobs are every bit as much about redistribution of wealth as programs designed to subsidize the cost of education for low income Americans. The only difference is that the former benefits the wealthy while destabilizing the economy, and the latter benefits the less fortunate while enhancing our national capacity. Republicans are quick to label education spending as “redistribution” but hold tax loopholes as something entirely different — which it’s not.

Instances of this distorted spin on reality are virtually limitless. Healthcare reform, energy policy, mining and drilling regulations, campaign finance, monetary policy, military spending, banking regulation, the list goes on, and in each and every case, government policy will impact the redistribution of wealth. For Republicans, so long as the flow of wealth upward is not impeded, distribution has occurred, not redistribution. This holds true even if it means reductions in compensation for workers, elimination of social safety nets, high unemployment, an under-educated populace — whatever the case may be.

President Obama would have been well served by responding to Bill O’Reilly’s question about redistribution of wealth with a heart felt “Hell yes! But no more than my Republican colleagues — just in the opposite direction” The truth is that government policy over the past 30-plus years has significantly redistributed the wealth of America — straight to the top.

Americans suffered the first decline in median household income since 1967 under George Bush, and meanwhile the average annual income of the top 1% grew by 73%. This is not the result of a free market but rather the result of a rigged market, one that is designed to redistribute wealth in ever increasing concentration amongst the most elite.

Since President Obama didn’t turn the inquiry back on Bill O’Reilly, I’ll ask the question here: how sustainable is an economy that continues to establish policies that have already concentrated more financial wealth in the top 1% than is held by the bottom 95%? I’ll even give Mr. Bill a clue — think Hosni Mubarak.

A reshaping of the economic team, beginning by naming a new director of the National Economic Council, is among the most urgent priorities of the new year. Gene Sperling, a counselor to the Treasury secretary who held the position in the Clinton administration, is among the final contenders to succeed Lawrence H. Summers in the job, along with Roger C. Altman, a Wall Street investment banker who also served in the Clinton administration.

Jeff Zeleny, New York Times

I find it interestin­g that just 10 days ago the story had Obama selecting the replacemen­t for Summers from three finalists, with only one not having strong Wall Street ties. Now it appears that only Sperling and Altman are still in the running, with Richard Levin, the one candidate who might have put Main St. in front of Wall St., having been eliminated­.

If only Obama would just once embrace his rhetoric with his actions, but that’s not going to happen. Alternativ­ely, he could just start being honest in what he says and admit that he is politicall­y wed to Wall Steet. Obama telegraphs everything well in advance of taking action, and this reorganiza­tion follows that practice — it portends a continuati­on of Wall St. feast and Main St. famine.

And with the Republican­s gaining control of the house and far too many Democrats falling in step to support Obama’s spirit of “compromis­e,” the writing is on the wall, etched in stone — things are likely to get worse, much worse for the average American.

The list [of Obama's legislative accomplishments], in fact, is staggering: major, not to say sweeping, new laws on health care, banking and finance, food safety, child nutrition, credit cards, pay equity, home mortgages, student loans, tobacco use and sale, home mortgages — not to mention $1.7 trillion in tax cuts and spending in the name of economic “stimulus.”

Taken together — and at least in theory — these measures amount to the most aggressive expansion of federal regulatory authority in a generation. It is no wonder the Chamber of Commerce spent $100 million and turned itself into a Rovian attack machine.

Even so, the party’s progressives aren’t particularly impressed by much of the new legislation. The Krugmanites — columnist Paul Krugman deserves to be their namesake — argue, and often with good cause, that the new laws are timid compromises with the powerful industries they are supposed to reform.

Does anyone think that big banks — having been saved by bailouts — have now become earnest stewards of the public good? How about insurance companies? Health-care conglomerates? Mortgage lenders?

Howard Fineman, Huffington Post

Obama is a corporatis­t, plain and simple. He is selling the middle and working classes down the river, and all under the guise of upholding Democratic ideals — what a farce! After caving on healthcare and gifting the medical insurers and Big Pharma with 32 million new, government subsidized patients, he moved to financial “reform” and strived to keep the banks alive and thriving, with their casino still wide open for business.

Then the President ends the first half of his term with a “compromis­e” that includes no “compromis­e.” It’s the lesson he learned from the teaser rates of the illegitima­te mortgage originator­s. You hook people by making them offers they can’t refuse — it’ll completely obscure their perception that all you’ve done is inflate the bubble a bit more. “Compromis­e” is when somebody gives — not when both sides get what they want.

The Obama tax deal is an abominatio­n, and any politician who voted for it is either corporatis­t or a crack dealer. This deal is nothing but a hit in the arm, a fix, and the high will end shortly and leave the nation much worse than it was. But it doesn’t really matter — not to the corporatis­ts. This entire fiasco is just another chapter in the Great American Ponzi Scheme — the one where the rich take their loot before the pyramid collapses, before the next calamity.

The sad truth is that America is suffering from over-concentration of wealth, and the Obama “deal” will only feed that fire. American productivi­ty climbed steadily for decades, but the gains have all been accumulate­d at the very top. The peak income for the bottom 90% of Americans occurred in 1973, when they averaged $33,000 in inflation adjusted dollars. Since then, the per-hour output of the average worker has increased by 50%. If that increase was shared proportion­ately by everyone from the workers to the CEOs, the average worker would be making 35% more now — the average household income would be increased by $20,000.

But that’s not the way it’s worked out. The deal has been broken. The top income people have taken a disproport­ionate share, like CEOs who now make 500 times what the average employee takes in — where it was only 25 times more in the 70s. Add to that the incessant shipping of jobs overseas to increase profits, often to the tax advantage of the traitorous company, and all the while, the government withholds tariffs under free trade. Who gets hurt? The American worker.

Of course, the multinatio­nals still enjoy the American consumer market and all the protection­s of American society. They even enjoy privatized earnings and socialized losses, Add to that the increasing­ly regressive tax structures that have helped to concentrat­e more financial wealth in the top 1% than the bottom 95%, and top it off with a burgeoning debt that could topple the dollar from being the reserve currency, and you’ve got a giant pyramid scheme that’ll likely be coming down soon.

President Obama has done NOTHING to help this situation, and by signing his tax deal into law, has actually forced the further descent of the American middle class. The bottom line is either raise taxes or drasticall­y cut services — what direction did the Obama “deal” take us? Obama and the Republicans will be coming for the spending cuts very soon, because now that we’ve given another tax cut to the only segment of the population capable of paying, there is no alternative. So tuck your Social Security away and batten the hatches — this is going to get ugly.