A common occurrence in a typical liberal versus conservative debate is one where the liberal bemoans that the conservative didn’t lambast a republican (and therefore assumed to be conservative – although that’s not always true) official over an issue over which the conservative is currently challenging the liberal.  Just think of government spending levels, stimuli packages, bailouts, etc.  Aside from the whole problem that liberals tend to have a difficult time being consistent, there is another contributing factor.  Many times, the democrat (and therefore liberal, which is usually true) official, has campaigned on and made boastful predictions about the issue in order to get elected.  However, once elected, it becomes a story of GOP obstructionists (even with two years of majority control of both sides of Congress, or within a state that is 7-to-1 democrat to republican in representation), a story of “we didn’t know just how bad it was”, or some other sob story that amounts to “it wasn’t my fault”.  While that works for Han Solo, it shouldn’t work for elected officials.

Take for a minute President Obama’s speech last night in Ohio.  The White House had advertised it as a speech to outline major efforts of his economic plans for the future.  But none of that materialized.  Instead, the hour long speech left many wondering why they wasted an hour of their time:

“In terms of politics, this speech could have ended about 20 minutes ago.” – Mike O’Brien, MSNBC

“I had high hopes for President Obama’s speech on the economy. But instead of going to Ohio on Thursday with a compelling plan for the future, the president gave Americans a falsehood wrapped in a fallacy.” – Dana Milbank, Washington Post

“I thought this, honestly, was one of the least successful speeches I’ve seen Barack Obama give in several years” – Jonathan Alter, MSNBC

Let’s look at a few choice excerpts:

The failure to pay for the tax cuts and the wars took us from record surpluses under President Bill Clinton to record deficits. And it left us unprepared to deal with the retirement of an aging population that’s placing a greater strain on programs like Medicare and Social Security.

So, he trots out the patently false Clinton surplus arguments where some fancy accounting magic shows a surplus, but when the entire federal budget is considered, don’t exist.  Then he implies that the GOP spent our way to record deficits – when, in reality, the Congress (who controls the country’s purse strings) was largely controlled by democrats – increased spending.  Finally, we weren’t prepared to deal with the issues facing Medicare and Social Security a decade ago, let alone when he walked into office.  And who has put forth any plans or ideas about seriously addressing them?  Paul Ryan – a republican.  Zero, zippy, nada from the President or from any democrat in Congress.

From 2001 to 2008 we had the slowest job growth in half a century. The typical family saw their incomes halt.

And how has the job growth been from 2008 to 2012 under your watch, Mr. President?  The average household income in 2010 was even lower than when he took office.  Unemployment numbers have set records for duration, participation in the labor force is at record lows, and just to recover to where the job numbers were at the beginning of the recession by the election, we would need to add over 300,000 jobs per month every month (hint: ain’t gonna happen).

Without strong enough regulations, families were enticed and sometimes tricked into buying homes they couldn’t afford.

Look, we’re all against predatory lending, but at least acknowledge that the government had increased pressure on these lending institutions to ease regulations and oversight in order to get lower income families into homes.

We acted fast. Our economy started growing again six months after I took office and it has continued to grow for the last three years.

The president is likely basing this on the quarterly GDP numbers where the quarterly change starting in January 2009 are: -6.6%, -0.7%, 1.6% and 3.8%.  Looks real good, right?  Let’s keep going into 2010: 3.9% (Q1), 3.7%, 2.5%, and 2.3%.  Uh oh, what’s happening?  Now 2011: 0.4% (Q1), 1.3%, 1.8% and  2.9%.  The story I got from liberal friends was that it would take time for his “economic policies” to kick in and take affect.  So, I guess they did in 2010 and 2011?

Our businesses have gone back to basics and created over 4 million jobs in the last 27 months; more private sector jobs than were created during the entire seven years before this crisis, in a little over two years.

Hmmm, 27 months?  That’s an odd number.  The President has been in office for over 40 months.  Why is he cutting it almost in half?  In looking around at this oddity, I found that Byron York has a  great piece on it.  Of course, the private sector is doing fine, right?

The GOP presented a rebuttal video which included the contrast of two Obama clips:

“I will be held accountable. I’ve got four years. If I don’t have this done in three years then this is going to be a one-term proposition.” – President Obama in February 1, 2009 on the Today Show.
“Of course the economy isn’t where it needs to be. Of course we have a lot more work to do. Everybody knows that” – President Obama, June 14, 2012.

And the President’s best buddy, former President Bill Clinton is also quoted from 2010 saying, “Give us two more years.  If it doesn’t work out, vote us out.”

Well, I say we listen to them.

Did you see it?  They touted it and explicitly asked for the responsibility (which is rare) for it.  Either they were extremely cocky and arrogant in thinking and boasting or they were extremely short-sighted, naïve and stupid.  Your choice but I think the net result should be the same.  There is a reason we have been tagging these articles with the “Obama Amateur Hour” since Monday, March 2, 2009.

GorT

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