Baltimore is among the bluest of blue cities, with decades of Democrat  mayors and city council majorities. The police department’s leadership reports to the elected Democrats, and is roughly 50% black. (See this great article by Kevin Williamson)It is pretty tough to find Republicans to blame for the riots, but that didn’t stop President Obama yesterday, speaking at his joint news conference with Japan’s Prime Minister Abe.  Charlie Sperling of Breitbart reports:

“There’s a bunch of my agenda that would make difference right now in that,” he said, calling for more funding for early education, criminal justice reform and job training.

Obama criticized members of Congress for blocking his agenda items, but encouraged Americans to do some “soul searching” during his joint press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe this afternoon.

“I’m under no illusion that under this Congress we’re going to get massive investments in urban communities,” he said, adding that it was important to work to improve communities anyway.

“This Congress” means Republicans, of course.

And “massive investments” means policies like the multi-trillion dollar “war on poverty” that was declared in the wake of the riots following the death of Martin Luther King. How’s that worked in Baltimore? Or maybe he means pressuring corporations to put facilities into impoverished neighborhoods. Like that CVS store that was burned down, with the fire hoses slashed.

Which GOP contender for the presidency will be the first to stand up and make the case that the Democrats have run Baltimore and other cities into the ground? Which will say that what we don’t need is more of the same policies that already failed?

Steny Hoyer, the most powerful Democrat on Capitol Hill, is playing defense, too. Kerry Pickett of The Daily Caller got him to speak on the record:

 The Daily Caller asked Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, if the city’s leadership had failed, since the West Baltimore area was still being rebuilt from the 1968 riots. Hoyer replied, “We have to invest in making sure that we have proper infrastructure and proper housing so that we have neighborhoods that are safe and that we safe conditions in which to live.”

“But I wouldn’t call it a failure, certainly, of Baltimore,” he added. “But we’re going to have to as a country invest if we’re going to have the kinds of communities we want.”

He wouldn’t call it a failure of Baltimore? Would he call it a success? It is time to start laughing at these Democrats, calling them out for evading the responsibility that is theirs.

Federal spending is the Democrats’ version of “more cow bell,” the compulsive resort to one tied and lame solution only, as immortalized in this Saturday Night Live sketch