Posted on 17 Feb 2010 at 10:49pm By GavinoOne joke currently traversing the internet has the Obama Administration planning to rename the tectonic plates that caused the earthquake tragedy in Haiti “Bush’s Fault”. The tendency for leftist politicians and journalists to lump the blame for everything bad on the erstwhile U.S. President, while attributing any positive news to liberal policies, has reached the point of farce. As Sideswipe reported last month, former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean went so far as to blame Mr. Bush for the defeat of his party’s candidate in the Massachusetts Senate race.
President Obama's policies have roused the masses
The Economist, once a centrist newspaper with free market principles, recently criticized Republicans for blocking the Democrats’ national healthcare plans with its minority of 40 Senators thwarting “the majority’s wishes”. Opinion polls show that the health care plans – drafted after the 2008 elections – are opposed by almost two out of every three Americans. So it is the liberal leadership in Congress that has been trying to force through a policy that is wanted by a minority of the populace. What Americans thought about ObamaCare was spectacularly demonstrated, to all open-minded enough to see, by Scott Brown’s victory in the liberal heartland of Massachusetts.
Moreover, it was a Democratic Party with clear majorities in both Houses of Congress that could not agree on a health care plan. Republicans opposed the Bill but they did not have the votes to block it. It wasn’t the wishes of the majority in Congress that were thwarted but the wishes of its radical leadership. In other words, the system worked.
Like other liberal media outlets, The Economist makes the mistake of presupposing that the health care plan was self-evidently a good thing. Ergo anything that attempted to stop it must be bad. Since the Republicans were the most visible and powerful opposition, they must be to blame for the failure of ObamaCare. But if liberal supporters of ObamaCare are looking for someone to blame other than George W. Bush or the Republican Party, they might look at the President and Vice President. As former Senators, both should have possessed sufficient insider skill to steer a health care Bill through the Senate with such a big majority.
Prior to Scott Brown’s election the biggest constraint on the President’s policies was his level of competence. But liberal commentator, E. J. Dionne Jr., writing in the Washington Post, overlooks the President’s failures and instead criticizes the right for labeling the President as a socialist when his political impact has been so limited. Yet it was the Democratic President who failed at the outset to work with his Congressional leadership to draft health care legislation. His failures don’t make him a moderate.
Another liberal commentator in the Washington Post is blaming Republicans again, this time for the forthcoming retirement of Democratic Senator Evan Bayh, who does not like the modern political partisanship. But partisanship is a two way street and it is hardly unusual in a democracy to have competing platforms jockeying for power. Why would Republicans be solely to blame? Aren’t the Democrats the ones currently controling the political agenda and institutions?
Ruth Marcus goes on to worry that things will get worse with Tea Partiers, “tugging the Republican Party even further to the right”. But she misses the point. Most Tea Partiers may have a conservative outlook but many are independents, disenchanted Democrats or fed up Republicans who feel that the federal government has lost touch with the people. How ironic that Ms. Marcus builds her case by holding up as an example of bipartisanship an approach by Republican leader Everett Dirksen to Bayh’s father in 1968. Dirksen apparently asked Democrat Senator Birch Bayh how he could help with his reelection. His son laments that such civility is unthinkable today. Sure, people want their elected officials to work together to improve their lot, but they don’t want them to connive together to maintain their powerbase. This is exactly the type of corruption that Tea Partiers are rallying against. They want their politicians to serve them, not each other.
While Democrats are busy playing the blame game, American politics continues to move forward. One veteran commentator is now recognizing the appeal of Sarah Palin, who addressed the recent Tea Party National Convention. While most liberal journalists continue to dismiss the former Vice Presidential candidate as intellectually challenged, David Broder advised: “Take Sarah Palin seriously.” He referred to, “the skill with which she drew a self-portrait that fit not just the wishes of the immediate audience but the mood of a significant slice of the broader electorate… The lady is good.”
When Bill Clinton declared that the era of big government was over, he was acknowledging the power of capitalism to raise living standards. President Obama and today’s Congress have moved in the opposite direction, dramatically expanding government. The result is that people are actively displaying their disapproval in a way not seen for generations.
When votes are tallied in the mid-term elections in November and in the general election two years later, President Clinton’s words may finally come true. Who will liberals blame then?
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That’s a good joke about “Bush’s Fault!”
Remember when, at almost every press conference or on every talk show, the main stream media wanted to know when President Bush would be willing to apologize for his mistakes as President? What are the chances of the MSM doing the same thing to President Obama? I’ll take the over-under at 0.
Hopefully the voters will express their distase for President Obama’s efforts in the mid-term elections.
Exactly! The main stream media doesn’t think he has made any mistakes. The mid terms will come as a complete shock. Perhaps FOX will be getting the blame by then…