Now the media is telling us that Obama is not allowed to point out facts that might acknowledge Bush’s faults:

In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”

It hasn’t taken long for the recriminations to return — or for the Obama administration to begin talking about the unwelcome “inheritance” of its predecessor.

Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems “inherited” from the Bush administration, using increasingly bracing language to describe the challenges his administration is up against. The “deepening economic crisis” that the president described six days after taking office became “a big mess” in remarks this month to graduating police cadets in Columbus, Ohio.

“By any measure,” he said during a March 4 event calling for government-contracting reform, “my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster.”

Obama’s more frequent and acid reminders that former president George W. Bush left behind a trillion-dollar budget deficit, a 14-month recession and a broken financial system have come at the same time Republicans have ramped up criticism that the current president’s policies are compounding the nation’s economic problems.

And which one of these things is not a rock-solid fact? If people on the right work constantly and tirelessly to blame Obama for every piece of bad economic news despite the fact that he has barely had time to do anything to effect the situation, then should not Obama be allowed to point out the obvious realities? If Obama wants to have any chance of being effective in this crisis, he has to maintain a level of confidence from the American people; he cannot do a good job if he cannot defend himself against baseless charges of malfeasance which erode the public’s trust in him.

I don’t fault the Bush administration for having said in their first year or even year and a half that they inherited their fiscal state from Clinton; they did. I fault them for their bad policy decisions to correct it, and their continued attempts to blame Clinton even well into Bush’ second term. If Obama, two years from now, is still saying that every new downturn in jobs is all Bush’s fault and not in any way due to his administration, then he should come under criticism for similarly faulty incriminations.

The fact that Obama is not doing what he has every right to do–actively investigating and prosecuting the blatant illegalities of the Bush administration–has demonstrated a rather strong commitment not to go to lengths to attack the previous administration. The last administration clearly violated the Fourth Amendment as well as other Constitutional principles, condoned, conducted, and legitimized torture, started an illegal war, and made an absolute mockery of the legal system in a plethora of illegal ways. This goes way beyond what is covered in the usual gentlemen’s agreement not to kick the outgoing administration on their way out.

So to fall all over Obama for stating truth in defense of smears as a means of allowing him to do his job, that’s going more than a tad too far. For some reason, there is a persistent meme out there that Obama, in order to be bipartisan, has to not only extend a hand, but he has to allow those on the right to bash him incessantly while he just stands there and takes it.

I noted this story in Google News and wrote the post in reaction to it. After writing this and getting ready to publish, I noticed that Steve Benen in The Washington monthly wrote a similar post.