Behind the Bush Bust - Krugman

[groovedaddy]

By huge margins, Americans think the economy is in lousy shape — and they blame President Bush. This fact, more than anything else, makes it hard to see how the Democrats can lose this election.

But is the public right to be so disgusted with Mr. Bush’s economic leadership? Not exactly. We really do have a lousy economy, a fact of which Mr. Bush seems spectacularly unaware. But that’s not the same thing as saying that the bad economy is Mr. Bush’s fault.

On the other hand, there’s a certain rough justice in the public’s attitude. Other politicians besides Mr. Bush share the blame for the mess we’re in — but most of them are Republicans.

First things first: pay no attention to apologists who try to defend the Bush economic record. Since 2001, economic conditions have alternated between so-so and outright bad: a recession, followed by one of the weakest expansions since World War II, and then by a renewed job slump that isn’t officially a recession yet, but certainly feels like one.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/opinion/07krugman.html?th&emc=th

[trusty elf]

1. Bush Bust

:D

[MasonJar]

2. Excellent article! Read it all.

[autorank]

3. Intelligence + intellectual honesty

This is excellent and on point. He showed the same type of intellectual honesty plus a lot of
courage when he was one of the only MSM folks to seriously question the results of the 2004
election. The guy is great.

[Demeter]

4. Bush Took a Potentially Good or Bad Situation And Made It Awful

The REAL question is: can this economy be repaired? And is Obama good at picking people so that it does get fixed?

[bemildred]

5. Bush inherited a booming economy and a budget surplus.

He has largely had his way with things for 8 years. It is entirely fair and just to hold him accountable for the current disaster. The same applies to his foreign policy record. If it helps any, the same logic applies with singular cogency to most of the weasels now sitting in Congress, and the most of the Supreme Court, all of whom have contributed their bit to the current economic and foreign policy debacle. It is worth mentioning at this point that the current situation was predicted and analyzed at length BEFORE these arrogant fuckwits launched their project of world domination.

[freesqueeze]

6. So...it's not too late

to take steps toward conservation now, is it?

This seems to be the main idea of this article. When we needed to move on CAFE standards Gingrich and his gang of fools stood in the way, but what excuse will be used if/when a Dem Prez and a Dem congress make the same mistake?

[spag68]

7. Let's be fair

It's not all his fault, however if you include all members of his family, they are more responsible then any other group. By the way if the Dems. don't fix it , we are duty bound to slam them too.