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Blame-Shifting in High Gear: Ludicrous Speed Ahead!

November 15th, 2008

I know that I have often pointed out that right-wingers blame the other side for everything all the time, but still, they’re going to extremes with this one.

For years after Bush took office, the wingnuts claimed that everything bad about the economy was Clinton’s fault. The idea was that Clinton dug us so deep into a hole that Bush could not possibly be blamed for anything bad that happened economically (though any progress was immediately awarded to Bush).

So, naturally, since Bush, after eight years in office, is handing off a far worse recession, maybe even a depression, to his successor, Obama will get the same grace period, right?

Ha! Of course not. Obama won’t even take office until two months from now, but the wingnuts aren’t wasting any time–despite Obama not even being the president-elect for a whole two weeks yet, the right-wing talking heads are already blaming our current downturn on him, calling it “The Obama Recession.”

What’s the job description for a wingnut? “No critical thinking skills required”? Oh, I’m sure they’ll have some rationalization as to how it just happened to work out the way they’re claiming. I’m just surprised that they are being so transparent about it. I expected them to wait until a few months after Obama took office to start blaming everything on him. But now, anyone who accepts this has to believe that Obama has been working for years behind the scenes to engineer this recession, or that he immediately inherits the recession and the blame for it a few months before he’s able to do anything.

Like the claims made by the wingnuts during the campaign, this new line of crap will be believed only by the converted, by the Kool-Aid drinkers and the Loyal Bushies. The blatant nature of the lie is so transparent, however, that this stands to only help Obama with the moderates.

So, keep spouting, Limbaugh, Hannity, and all the others–keep spouting this laughable lie. The more you do, the more you highlight the fact that it’s a lie, and the more people will remember that it’s a lie for quite some time. You could have waited a decent amount of time, until after Bush had faded away and people had been hurting for a while, and then started blaming Obama–and a lot more people would have bought into it. But now, whenever you try to do that over the next few years, all anyone has to do is to remind everyone that you’ve been saying the same thing since two months before Obama even took office–and at that, the accusation will fall flat.

  1. Paul
    November 16th, 2008 at 14:17 | #1

    They’re trying to get ahead of the game. Language is extremely powerful, and if they can get this nickname to catch on, even if THINKING people know that it’s bullshit it doesn’t matter; it’s still hung on Obama.

    The left wing needs to go ahead and lower itself to their tactics from time to time, and this is definitely one of those times. This should ONLY be known as the Bush Recession, period.

    Gotta fight this fire with fire.

  2. Tim Kane
    November 16th, 2008 at 21:13 | #2

    Amazing isn’t it: The first Bush recession was Clinton’s fault. The second Bush recession – and I predict it will be called “The Great Recession” to both distinguish and compare it to “The Great Depression” – is Obama’s fault.

    Gee – God forbid, if Obama died next week, would it then become the Biden Recession?

    If McCain would have been elected, then whose recession would it be?

    Couldn’t they just as well call it “the on going Clinton recession” and while they are at it couldn’t they just go ahead and call the “The Great Depression” the “The Depression in anticipation of Clinton?” I mean if logic and reason are out of bounds, why not blame Clinton for the collapse of the Roman Empire while they are at it?

    (This would make a great Saturday Night Live skit – Similar to the old “Ditka versus God” skit [q: ‘who’s got home field advantage?’ a:’God’ r:’well, then it’s a tie and Ditka wins in overtime’]. Have a bunch of Republicans sit around talking politics, civics and history – or maybe Fox news host at a company happy hour or some such thing.)

    By the way – this is another way of using humor to discredit the Republican party – which, again, is why I say that one Franken will be worth three garden variety senators. He’ll mock and satirize them into triviality.

    Amazing, these bastards haven’t done one thing right. Not one policy has worked out. Imagine where they would be if they didn’t own their own news/propaganda network.

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