The change, it had to comeWe knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war
I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!
Won't Get Fooled Again, The Who , Who's Next(1971)
Every president will blame the past one, either directly or indirectly (using media commentators or spokesmen.) And many times it is valid to do that. Most Americans agreed that G.W. Bush could not be (entirely) responsible for the successful Sept 11, 2001 attacks or the 2001 market crash. Much of what he had to work with his first nine months was left over from the Clinton administration. But liberals (progressives) to this day still say that the "September 11, 2001 attacks were on Bush's Watch" after only nine months in office and that Bush was left a booming economy by Clinton. Yet they also claim that this is not yet Obama's economy even now in October 2009, unless there is good news. Good news is always the Obama economy.
Well like it or not Obama inherited a huge mess. I know last December 2008 Rush-bo was claiming the stock market was crashing because Obama was elected. You may or may not believe that, but it really couldn't sell, especially after the Bush TARP speech last fall tanked the market. You may think the economy crash of late 2008 was all democrats fault, CRA, etc. Again, that couldn't possibly sell. Sadly the great Republican experiment 2001-2006 was not the happy story we were hoping to tell the next generations. Obama was left with many free passes from President Bush, the previous congresses and most of all Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve and he is copying those passes for future use. He will use them as long as he can; and in three years 2012 democrats will still be blaming Bush for anything that is bad. The Democrats failed American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 should seriously be hurting Obama much more than it is; and republicans need to keep pounding Democrats on it, and pound even more on the deficit and our destroyed future. How about the failed cash for clunkers program?? (Edmunds: Cash for Clunkers cost taxpayers $24k per car, not $4k )( Edmunds Inc) But even that will take time. Each month Obama owns a little more of every bit of the bad news. You can't make the hour-glass sand of public opinion run as fast you would like. Republicans had many years in power.
Obama is much more masterful at politics than republicans ever were. Note how in spite of the fact that republicans are completely out of power, and democrats have the 60 vote Senate majority (something republicans never had), that Obama is still making ‘republicans’ the issue on his failures to get bills passed. Republicans ‘just say no’. They ‘don't have a plan’ , they ‘want Obama to fail’. All of this SHOULD be considered completely irrelevant now. But Democrats are keeping republicans negatives high with this strategy. Do you remember Bush keeping attention on democrats obstruction in 2005 when democrats destroyed the Social Security reform by claiming republicans wanted to kill seniors?? Of course not! GWB was lame at fighting democrats politically after 2004 mostly playing defense. On the other side the Obama administration's War of FOX News makes no sense at all except maybe a strategy to keep the liberal base on their side. (FOXNews.com, October 18, 2009 White House Escalates War on Fox News)
According to Obama and democrats, any job created is Obama’s Economic Recovery package and any job that is lost is Bush's (GWBs) recession. That's how the 650,000 jobs were created or saved by the Obama stimulus, (below) all while we lost 3.6M jobs since stimulus package was passed. (White House: 3.6 Million Jobs Lost is “Quite Positive”), but those are Bushes job losses in this bad Bush economy.
"Politico.com announced on Oct. 30 that White House officials planned a Friday afternoon announcement for the same day claiming "at least 1 million jobs" had been saved or created....Other news outlets, including NPR and CNN, focused on a lower White House claim the same day saying that "more than 650,000 jobs have been saved or created" under the stimulus." at : Politico Says White House 'Under Pressure' Will Announce 1 Million Jobs 'Saved'
Why only claim only 1 Million jobs were saved or created?? How about claiming that 4 million were saved or created by the ‘Obama economy' while the ‘Bush economy’ lost 7 million jobs (still the net lost of 3 million jobs) at exactly the same time in 2009? Obama is still the hero in this narrative and he gets to extend our unemployment benefits too raising payroll taxes, just what we need with increasing unemployment. ( Payroll paradox : Our view: Why raise unemployment taxes now? The law offers no choice: Baltimore Sun) . And the federal minimum wage increased, democrats give everyone a raise too at the same time. That was actually a GW Bush/Pelosi bill raising the minimum raise while we have steep unemployment under Obama. Ironic, Huh??
How Long can it all be Republicans fault?? The answer will be that : "It will always be republicans fault." No matter how bad things get, unemployment, deficits, inflation, health care rationing or prices under democrats. We will be told that "Things would have been even worse without Obama. We tried free markets and capitalism and it failed under republicans, now we will try socialism (never tried before apparently) and so far it is working fine."
But if Democrats start losing elections, like next Tuesday November 3, 2009, then we will have a sign that the voters are turning again. But still...
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
