Lol...this is the same speech over and over. All you can do is laugh. He's like the pansy boy on the field, talking a big game and then folding like a lawn chair when forced to make a play. One year on, Obama cites struggle with Bush legacy Thu Nov 5, 2009 4:04am By Ross Colvin MADISON, Wis. (Reuters) - A year after his historic election, President Barack Obama sought to remind Americans on Wednesday the biggest problems he is grappling with -- from the economy to the war in Afghanistan -- are the legacy of his predecessor, George W. Bush. With his approval ratings down from once-lofty levels and Tuesday's Democratic election losses raising questions about his political clout, Obama held no special ceremony to mark the anniversary of his election as America's first black president. He instead traveled to Wisconsin to appear before a friendly audience in a school gymnasium and promote education as a pillar of his economic recovery efforts. Obama was elected on a promise of sweeping change after eight years under Bush, but many Americans are increasingly expressing impatience that his pledge has yet to bear fruit. He used the preamble of his speech to insist his administration had indeed had important successes and also to remind Americans of the litany of daunting challenges he inherited when he took office in January. "One year ago, Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see," Obama said. But he said his administration was also confronted with a "financial crisis that threatened to plunge our economy into a Great Depression, the worst that we've seen in generations." "We had record deficits, two wars, frayed alliances around the world," Obama added. He said his administration had acted swiftly to save the economy from "imminent collapse." "While we still have a long way to go, we have made meaningful progress toward achieving that goal," he said. Nine months into his term, Obama's Republican critics have accused him of overplaying the "blame card" against Bush, a Republican who left office with one of the lowest poll ratings of any modern president. Obama has seen his own approval numbers fall to the 50 percent range from above 70 percent as he struggles to push through a healthcare overhaul, reverse massive job losses and decide whether to send more troops to an increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan. He took another hit to his political standing on Tuesday when voters elected Republicans in state governors' races in Virginia and New Jersey despite his personal campaigning for the Democratic candidates. The White House denied the election losses were in any way a referendum on the president.
This whole, we inherited a crisis is getting really old, and it's bullshit to boot. Obama and the Dems act as if they had nothing to do with contributing to the meltdown. May I remind them that Dodd, Frank, the rest of the gang in D.C., not to mention Acorn and others leftist groups played a wee bit of a role in causing the housing bubble. Here's what we're dealing with. We had 8 years of lefties doing what lefties do, all the while Bush and his gang trying to appease them. Bottom line, we had years and years of leftist financial irresponsibility at the hands of both parties. Now Obama and his crew have a plan...the house is on fire, let's throw some gas on it, and blame Bush as it burns to the ground.
In all fairness Bush did leave him some messes, principally in Iraq. Obama is on record as saying Afghanistan was the "right" war, so I have to assume he would have wanted to be there. I can't really see any validity to his complaints on the economy, since democrats wanted to spend even more than Bush did. In fact, some of the worst of Bush's economic decisions were driven mainly by a desire to preempt political attacks from the democrats, medicare drug plan for example. Bush cleared the way for Obama's takeover of the auto and financial sectors, so I can't see why he would be blaming Bush for anything happening there. As noted by others, democrats pushed the whole housing bubble through FNM and FRE and reduced lending standards. Bush is somewhat responsible for a failure of regulatory supervision, but the reason the supervision was needed in the first place is because of irresponsible plans pushed by democrats. Let's not forget that Wall Street, investment banks and big law were all big supporters of obama not Bush.
I blame Clinton for the failure of regulatory supervision, in a way, with his repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Bush had balls, no one liked him. "I will never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are." -George Bush
And the housing act in 1994. What bill or piece of legislation did Bush sign that led to the recession? You can blame the Federal Reserve; they had a big part to play. You can blame deregulation of banks that allowed them to take on enough risk to bankrupt the system. You can blame all those MBAs who are so smart that they created a way to leverage the rotten mortgages by selling them back to Fannie and Freddie who willing bought them and became "Too BIG to fail, and now the government has bought them just for you. You can blame the democrats that insisted banks lend $500,000 to people that couldn't pay back $5,000. But, it's really hard to think, so just blame Bush.
Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama are the first presidents in our modern history to break a very well respected and time honored tradition of refraining from criticizing past or current administrations. Just like every self-righteous liberal that feels empowered by their own moral superiority, they placed themselves above this tradition. When Bush came into office in 2001, America was in a recession. Did anyone blame Clinton? Did Bush walk around and say he inhreited a mess from Clinton?. I'd say Clinton. It was under his watch that he allowed the de-regulation of the banking industry to occur, which is really the main culprit here. When Reagan came to office in 1981, america was in a depresion. Did he blame Carter?. Obama isn't to blame for anything wrong because, in the words of Sting, "he's sent from God, he is the Messiah, the choosen one, the second comming of Jesus. BTW- Congress is really responsible for economic upturns and downturns since it is THAT body that creates economic legislative policies.