It's Bush's Fault!!!!

[ABM]

Please.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69415.html

The Senate’s top two Democratic and Republican leaders agree on at least one thing: Democrats will try to make the 2012 election about George W. Bush.

After occupying the White House for three years, Democrats will try to blame everyone but themselves, including the Bush administration, for the sour economy and jobs crisis, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday in a floor exchange with Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Reid, a Nevada Democrat and close ally of President Barack Obama, conceded that McConnell wasn’t completely off base.

“I do think the presidential election will be based on what took place in the Bush administration, how we tried to recover from that, how things have been exacerbated because of the tsunami and European debt crisis,” Reid said.

“But I also agree wholeheartedly with my friend that we need to work together, the rest of this Congress,” he added. “It’s difficult to do, but we need to set aside presidential politics and work in our sphere as legislative leaders to try to work and move this country along.”

Earlier, McConnell summed up what he viewed as the Democratic campaign being waged in the Senate against Republicans: “After being the administration in power for three years, it’s – No. 1, it’s George Bush’s fault.”

“Among other causes of our current dilemma that have been cited by the president and others, in addition to the previous administration, it was the tsunami in Japan, it’s the European debt crisis,” the minority leader continued. “Of course, it’s the Republicans in Congress. It’s those millionaires. It’s those people in Wall Street.

“In short, madam president, it’s everybody’s fault but ours.”

 

[Ed O]

I am certainly no fan of the Dems, but it's both fair and smart to do that.

Fair because outcomes as complex as the economy and foreign policy are continuous--they are rarely isolated and in a vacuum. If they can frame the decisions they made as the best ones available to them (and to point out that Bush and the GOP had painted them into a corner) then... I can see how that's not dishonest.

It's smart because, standing on their own accomplishments, the country has been in the shitter since they took over and it seems to be on the verge of getting a lot worse.

Ed O.