We need a new, aggressive campaign to set the story straight...

[kentuck]

The economy is bad. We have near-record unemployment. We are in a deep recession, if not a long-term depression.

The Republicans want everyone to believe it is all the fault of Barack Obama. Everything started downhill with the election of the Democrats in 2006.

If we permit them their revision, all the huge debt and deficits are the fault of the big spending, socialist, Barack Obama. The economy would be doing just fine if we had a Republican leading our country.

There are people, many people, that will believe this crap. They cannot remember what happened yesterday, let alone a year ago or 8 years ago. They have no institutional memory. It is all like a reality show to them.

However, there are the facts. In the middle of September of last year, in the final four months of the Bush Presidency, there was a total meltdown. Shockwaves rattled the markets around the world. Most economists, from all political persuasions, agreed that something drastic had to be done to prevent the meltdown. Barack Obama was a leader in saving the capitalist system as we now know it. That may be good or bad but we have no way to predict what would have happened if he had done something else?

Many people, Democrats and Republicans, had their life-savings tied up in the stock market. The market was dropping like a rock. It dropped from just above 14,000 on the Dow to just above 6500. It was in freefall. It was not a good time for anyone invested in the stock market. However, as of today, the market has stabilized and is now above 10,000. People invested in 401Ks and other investments are starting to earn money again.

Perhaps, in hindsight, we should have let the banks go under? But we do not know where we would be today if that had happened? Monday morning quarterbacking is easy. The President made the decision he did and he told the people that with the "stimulus" plan unemployment should not go above 8%. We now know that he and everyone else was wrong. It was much worse than anyone imagined.

We are still in the depths of this recession/depression. We know what caused it and it needs to be fixed. But it was not Barack Obama that caused the mess. It was repeal of Glass-Steagal. It was the Congressional approval of letting banks into speculative markets. Both parties were to blame but the catalyst that pushed it all along was the Republican mantra of "less regulations".

Barack Obama cannot escape responsibility for placing Geithner and Summers in charge of the clean-up but they have shown themselves unable to see beyond their Wall Street bubbles. However, we cannot escape the reality of George W Bush and Hank Paulson, in the middle of September, telling the American people and the world that we needed $700 billion dollars immediately with no questions asked. John McCain, the Republican nominee at the time, agreed. That amount drove the final Bush deficit above $1.2 trillion dollars for the last year of the Bush Administration. This was what was handed to Barack Obama. Not to mention two wars and a diplomatic mess around the world.

Do not let the Republicans shift the blame from where it belongs. They doubled the national debt in just 8 short years. They added $5 trillion dollars to it. And they pretended it didn't matter. And now, they pretend that it was someone else.

..

[Possumpoint]

1. Thanks

for laying out the record. K&R

[rudy23]

2. If Obama wants to impress the Republicans so much, let him worry about how to defend himself

I'm through sticking up for him while he throws us under the bus. If he's in love with the Republicans, let him figure out how to get them to stop harassing him.

[SammyWinstonJack]

10. +1

:applause:

[johnnie]

3. The sad thing is..

There are no amount of facts that would change people's minds. It's quite clear that there are a large percentage of people in this country who refuse to think for themselves. As long as the so-called "news" channels are feeding them bullshit for ratings, these people will follow along.

I've said this before and got flamed pretty well, but I think the best thing the right-wingers ever did for themselves was to realize the power of the email and to utilize it by sending out so much misinformation that it becomes viral.

Misinformation to the masses is the best way that they keep their base from thinking on their own. As long as it is said in an email and on the "news" then it is their "facts". I don't know of a way to turn that around.

[doc03]

4. Obama and all Democrats should have spent the last

year calling this the Bush Depression. Noooo! they didn't want to upset Republicans bipartisanship and all that stuff. Well you see how far that got us. GWB named the recession that started in March of 2001 the Clinton recession hundreds of times.

[cleveramerican]

5. He suffers from impossible expectations

There is no way to change this.
He is going to have to.... and shows every willingness to.. press on anyway.

[Angry Dragon]

6. He comes off as a man that wants people to work together

this works fine if the other people want to work together, they do not. I see as the only choice for him and this country is to take of the gloves, as they say, and go on the attack. Let him show if he has any passion for the things he believes in. Let him call people out on their deeds.

Let him say this is the way things are as I see them, I need a show of hands of the people for me, I need a show of hands of people against me. Let him show some passion and anger. The other side has no problem showing their anger. Ange ris a good thing if used for good.

Up to this point he has not really shown me that he has passion.

[Yuugal]

7. Damn repukes!

[EmeraldCityGrl]

8. Obama is developing a reputation

as an appeaser and appeasers are never respected. Republicans are without conscience and will take down the country
in order to ruin Obama. I know how brilliant Obama is, but sometimes get the impression he needs approval and
views his actions as to how they will be historically remembered.

These are the most difficult time I can remember and while I know he is capable of doing what needs to be done, I'm
becoming fearful he won't take the leap and make the unpopular policy decisions we voted for.

[SammyWinstonJack]

11. In a nutshell!

I know how brilliant Obama is, but sometimes get the impression he needs approval and views his actions as to how they will be historically remembered.

How frustrating.

[rudy23]

9. If Obama wants to run a center-right administration, he needs the Teabaggers

He needs there to be people "pushing" him towards the right. He can't appear to have gone there on his own. He has to look like he had no choice, given the insane amount of pressure put on him by a segment of "the people" (even though they're funded by astroturfers). I think that's why he's not in any big hurry to fight back against the right. He absolutely needs them for a centrist, or center-right presidency.