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- iHaveNet.com: Politics
by Jules Witcover
For some time now, President Obama has been playing the blame game to explain the economic hole in which he finds himself, and the country with him. How successful he is by the time of the November elections will determine the course of his next two years in office.
For most of this summer, the president has focused the blame for the stagnant economy and high unemployment on former President George W. Bush. He railed against him as well for his invasion of Iraq at a time we hadn't finished the war we had to fight in Afghanistan.
The complaints were certainly legitimate. The faulty regulation of Wall Street under Bush robbed American investors of billions and gouged unaware home buyers. And the launching of a war of choice was based at best on faulty intelligence, and at worst on mindless connivance.
But as Obama continued to sing that song, the Republican leadership in
Bush himself, never known in the
Obama had at first pointedly counseled his party to avoid rehashing the past. He rejected demands from congressional Democrats and liberal activist groups for a thorough investigation of the Bush years, including how and why we got into Iraq, saying the Democrats needed to look forward, not back.
Part of that advice was in keeping with Obama's ambitious if naive hope to bring real bipartisanship back to Washington after years of partisan stalemate. But it didn't take long for the Republican leaders in
The Democrats soon tagged the Republicans as the Party of No for their obvious and orchestrated obstructionism, using the threat of filibuster in the
In recent weeks, however, the president has begun to broaden his pitch from blaming the absent Bush to blaming the still-present
In Detroit and again the other day in Chicago, Obama honed his campaign message more against the Republicans in
In the auto capital, the president built on his argument not only that the Republicans got the country's economic car "into the ditch" in the Bush years, but also that now those remaining in
"So after all us huffing and puffing we finally get the car out of the ditch," he said in Chicago. "And what do they say? 'Give us the keys back.' Well, you can't have the keys back. You got us in the ditch in the first place." He reminded his audience that "when you want to go forward, what do you put the car in? 'D.' When you want to go backwards, what do you do? You put it in 'R.' "
In as much as Obama is campaigning against the "Rs" in
Available at Amazon.com:
The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy
The Virtues of Mendacity: On Lying in Politics
Bush on the Home Front: Domestic Policy Triumphs and Setbacks
The Political Fix: Changing the Game of American Democracy, from the Grassroots to the White House
AMERICAN POLITICS
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Honing the Obama Pitch | Politics
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