This Is George Bush's Recession: Why Doesn't Anybody Talk About That?

[babylonsister]

This Is George Bush's Recession: Why Doesn't Anybody Talk About That?

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted November 30, 2009.

If the partisan tables were turned, the GOP would waste no time laying the blame on Democrats. We need to do the same to build political capital for key fights ahead.


In October, Barack Obama told a San Francisco audience about what it was like trying to deal with an economy he’d inherited in smoking ruins last January. “I'm busy … cleaning up somebody else's mess,” he said. “We don't want somebody sitting back saying, you're not holding the mop the right way… That's a socialist mop." As the audience applauded the line, Obama challenged Republicans to "Grab a mop, let's get to work."

The image of cleaning up after his predecessor’s mess pleased pundits like Andrew Sullivan, who wrote that "get a mop” is "an inspired three-word challenge to the GOP. Devastating, actually -- because it both reminds people of the damage the GOP did while not seeming to dwell on the past or to score partisan points (while actually doing both).”

It’s certainly punchy, but perhaps unnecessarily oblique. Given that even a recent Fox News poll found that almost six in 10 voters believe Bush bears the ultimate responsibility for the recession we’re staggering through, you have to wonder why Democrats aren’t simply referring to all of this as "the Bush recession."

One thing is certain: were the partisan tables turned, every elected Republican, conservative columnist, right-wing blogger and hate-radio gabber would be repeating the phrase ad nauseam, but progressives have always lacked that kind of message discipline. In a 2004 interview, legendary right-wing activist Richard Viguerie -- an instrumental figure building the conservative movement since the 1960s -- told me that his side has an inherent advantage in top-down message discipline because modern conservatives "are descended from monarchists,” and have a "natural instinct to follow the king."

So it has been as Washington scrambles to rescue the tanking economy. Republicans have offered consistently hollow sound bites about creeping socialism and government takeovers, and Democrats have come up with clever ways to "frame" the issue (grab that mop!), but haven’t consistently played the age-old and rather straightforward game of laying blame for calamity at the door of one’s political opponent.

Calling the mess we’re facing the “Bush Recession” isn’t a matter of looking back out of spite, but of developing political capital for some key fights ahead. There’s a potentially ugly battle with Wall Street coming up over financial reform. There are calls for more stimulus, new jobs programs and more relief for those suffering the most as a result of the crash. There’s value in tying those already lined up to defend the status quo on Wall Street, or who’d deny more assistance to “Main Street,” to the least popular president in memory and reminding people that the economy was never going to be a quick fix even in the best-case scenario.

more...

http://www.alternet.org/politics/144225/this_is_george_bush%27s_recession%3A_why_doesn%27t_anybody_talk_about_that?page=entire

[MannyGoldstein]

1. I Think It's The Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama Depression

The result of 29 years (and counting) of fringe-Right economic policies. Dim Son was the craziest, but they were/are all highly complicit.

[Vincardog]

13. Call it the Conservative fail Depression Dim Son was the craziest, but they were all highly complici...

This is what happens when Parasitic Capitalists are allowed to run unrestrained.

[notesdev]

2. This is a bipartisan disaster

For the record, the proximate root cause of this financial disaster, Graham Leach Bliley, passed the House 362-57 and the Senate 90-8, with both parties voting for it overwhelmingly. Same with bailouts, same with disastrous trade legislation. These have happened with Presidents of both parties and Congresses controlled by both parties.

There are no saviors. If we wish to be saved, we must save ourselves.

[IrateCitizen]

6. Spot on, but unfortunately does not fit into the favored narrative.

Especially this part: If we wish to be saved, we must save ourselves.

Most people have become so conditioned into dependence upon the institutions that so repeatedly screw us over that they cannot fathom doing the heavy lifting required (as liberating as that lifting may be) to "save ourselves." This explains the willingness with which so many attach their hopes (or fears) to a "savior" who will make everything all right.

I am reminded of how bipartisan this phenomenon is when I see criticism of Obama met with vitriol and anger by so many on this site.

[sailor65]

9. +1

For the big elephant in the room.

[RKP5637]

3. IMO the democrats of late have never been good at one liners that stick that sum up

a situation, such as, the "Bush Recession." They need to do this over and over and over again. Often people have short memories and I think by human nature to blame the present rather than the past for failures/problems. And in politics, the republicans in this case are only too happy to exploit every opportunity to hang Bush's messes and failures on Obama and the current democratic administration by default.

If the wrong thing is said over and over by the Rs, eventually some will come to believe the wrong rather than the correct...

PS: As some posters have said, and I agree, the current mess is cumulative starting about with Reagan. Many share the blame, but IMO Bush pulled the trigger that started it all really toppling...

[bobburgster]

4. It is politically advantageous....

to play on the masses who have short pliable memories.

[Tutankhamun]

5. I've been saying since the great recession began that

we need to call it what it is: a Republican recession. Thom Hartmann actually does call it that. Unfortunately, he's the only media person I know of who's been doing that all along.

[Stables2010]

7. Mostly because the Outrage machine is on the right, they trade in blame, resentment and hate.

Left winger sometimes, I think are pussy and to often take the highroad instead of getting down in the mud and cracking heads.

[HamdenRice]

8. The so-called "left" is doing the same thing. Looks like 1/2 of DU thinks it's Obama's recession

So economic illiteracy isn't limited to the bizaro right.

[bertman]

10. Probably because the opportunity to cast this as Bush's Recession came and went when

President Obama picked to be his financial advisers the same people who precipitated it. Instead of heeding the advice of those who said he needed to spend MORE money to effectively counter the recession and make more options available for homeowners instead of just catering to Wall Street, he followed the advice of the Greenspan-Rubin-Summers-Geithner cabal.

If he had spent the necessary funds instead of catering to the Republican Bi-partisanship crowd, we would be coming out of this recession and talking about The Obama Recovery from the Bush Recession. But by catering to Wall Street and bi-partisanship (ha ha) he chose to live with the results, and now it's on his record.

[zbdent]

11. two words ... "liberal media" ...

it's mythological, but people believe it's out there ...

[thelordofhell]

12. Because blame is for losers

Winners fix problems first

[montanto]

14. Because blaming others is bullshit

and doesn't change anything?

What would Chomsky do?