Tuesday, May 25, 2010

The Stigmatization of Bush-Blaming

The New Republic writes on The Stigmatization Of Bush-Blaming "Now, I think it's fine for a story to eschew 'balance'when one side is making an unsupportable or hypocritical case. But Obama's case isn't wrong -- it really is true that the economic and budgetary problems we're facing were inherited from the previous administration. What's false is the Republican effort to imply that Obama caused the problems -- an argument that collapses upon the slightest empirical pressure. But somehow the standard here is not what's correct but what's polite, and it's impolite for Obama to blame Bush."

Paul Krugman follows up On Blaming Bush. "What Chait doesn’t point out, however, is that the idea that enough time has passed that we can’t blame Bush is especially wrong-headed given the nature of our problems. We’re in the aftermath of a financial crisis — and there’s overwhelming evidence (pdf) that recovery from financial crises is almost always protracted and difficult. There’s no way one should have expected everything to be fine until the Lehman failure lies years in the past. In fact, the return of job growth we’ve already seen is ahead of schedule compared with the historical average."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Obama has had so many opportunities now to correct the direction of this nation under Reagan/Clinton/Cheney-Bush, that even I tire of him and his administraiton carping about the Bush administration. It's fine to say you inherited a mess, a county headed down the wrong path, but now, what are you doing about it in big meaningful ways?

Our democracy, economic well-being, and national security (which ultimately flows from the combination of the aformentioned) are under assault by the corporatists (for lack of a better term).

Obama has declined to take on these powers (e.g., Wall Street, Big Oil, Health Insurance Industry). He has not proven himself to be a leader in the fashion of FDR or JFK. The country needs him to stand up for the average citizen, visibly and forcefully take up the fight against the corporatists, and in doing so to quote FDR - "welcome their hatred". In fact, it's been just the opposite.

I always thought that Obama had the intellectual capacity to be a great president, what I am starting to realize is that he doesn't have the emotional character and sense of purpose to do what needs to be done. When it comes to standing up to the big money (corporations and banks) that have been slowly, but surely, draining the country dry (just look at the wealth distribution upwards over the last 30 years), he has proven himself to be no different than his predecessors.

Yes, Reagan/Clinton/Bush sowed the seeds of the current environment, but Obama has done little to nothing substantive to deal with the underlying erosion of our democracy, middle class, and economic stability, which is being quickly replaced by an oligarchy of the wealthy and powerful.

This piece by D. Ratigan sums up for me why Obama will likely lose re-election unless he starts being a real leader of the American people.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dylan-ratigan/mr-president-defend-ameri_b_590123.html