Bob Herbert wrote a column today that is REQUIRED reading for any self-respecting American at this time. http://www.nytimes.com/...
He coined the term "renegade clowns" today in describing the Republican right.
It has become increasingly clear over the past 6 weeks that the Republican party is NOT a serious opposition party. When John McCain and John Boehner are seriously calling for a "spending freeze" during a potential "depression," then there is no doubt that they are determined to simply be obstructionists. This means that President Obama cannot take them seriously. He needs to get on with the business of saving the country from ruin. The Republicans are not planning to be partners in that effort. So be it, President Obama should just roll over them.
Bob Herbert makes the point in his column today that many people are becoming hysterical in their desire to pin the entire economic downturn on President Obama.
Barack Obama has only been president for six weeks, but there is a surprising amount of ire, anger, even outrage that he hasn’t yet solved the problems of the U.S. economy, that he hasn’t saved us from the increasingly tragic devastation wrought by the clownish ideas of right-wing conservatives and the many long years of radical Republican misrule.
This intense, impatient, often self-righteous, frequently wrongheaded and at times willfully destructive criticism has come in waves, and not just from the right. Mr. Obama is as legitimate a target for criticism as any president. But there is a weird hysterical quality to some of the recent attacks that suggests an underlying fear or barely suppressed rage. It’s a quality that seems not just unhelpful but unhealthy.
I believe that the traditional press has been committing malpractice in how they have reported this financial collapse. I hardly see any real journalism identifying the fact that 30 years of Republican "misrule" has brought us to this point. Instead I am subjected to pundits talking about "class warfare" being waged by President Obama. They are talking about "class warfare" NOW? The past thirty years have been the biggest REDISTRIBUTION of WEALTH to the TOP 5% since the Gilded Age. This fact has never been characterized as class warfare by the traditional press. Instead that has been considered by the pundit class as the "norm." This is the way things ought to work according to them.
In his column, Mr. Herbert speaks truth to power by calling the Republicans out for their criminal mismanagement of the economy.
In the midst of the craziness, conservatives are busy trying to blame this epic economic catastrophe — a conflagration of their own making — on the new president. Forget Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush and George Herbert Hoover Bush and the Heritage Foundation and the Club for Growth and Phil Gramm and Newt Gingrich and all the rest. The right-wingers would have you believe this is Obama’s downturn.
The bear market would no doubt have magically turned around by now, and those failing geniuses at the helm of our flat-lined megacorporations would no doubt be busy manufacturing new profits and putting people back to work — if only Mr. Obama had solved the banking crisis, had lowered taxes on the rich, had refused to consider running up those giant deficits (a difficult thing to do at the same time that you are saving banks and lowering taxes), and had abandoned any inclination that he might have had to reform health care and make it a little easier for ordinary American kids to get a better education.
This brings me to the co-collaborating "Democrats." Bob Herbert refers to them as "feckless Democrats." I believe that it will be increasingly important for the American people to hold several Senate Democrats accountable over the next few months. The following Senators are already proving to be particularly problematic: Blanche Lincoln, Evan Bayh, Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman, Mark Pryor, Mary Landrieu, and Max Baucus. Others such as Claire McCaskill, Jon Tester, Kent Conrad, and Russ Feingold are likely to prove very problematic during the upcoming budget battle. They are making noises that are truly disturbing. In order to prevent another Great Depression, we need to overcome the Renegade Republican clowns and the Feckless "moderate" Democrats. It will not be easy. However if we truly want a JUST economic recovery, we are going to need to have the administration's back.
I end with what I believe was the best part of Bob Herbert's column today:
I don’t know whether President Obama’s ultimate rescue plan for the financial industry will work. He is a thoughtful man running a thoughtful administration and the plan, a staggeringly complex and difficult work in progress, hasn’t been revealed yet.
What I know is that the renegade clowns who ruined this economy, the Republican right in alliance with big business and a fair number of feckless Democrats — all working in opposition to the interests of working families — have no credible basis for waging war against serious efforts to get us out of their mess.
Maybe the markets are down because demand has dried up, because many of the nation’s biggest firms have imploded and because Americans are losing their jobs and their homes by the millions. Maybe a dose of reality is in order, as opposed to the childish desire for yet another stock market bubble.
Maybe the nuns in grammar school were right when they counseled that patience is a virtue. The man has been president for six weeks.
Let's all regain our perspective and practice some patience. We didn't get into this mess overnight and it will take the better part of the next 4 years to climb our way out of the hole that we are in. Don't be distracted by the CONSTANT polling being done out there. Stop watching cable news in order to preserve your mental health. Do what you can in your community to help support President Obama's agenda. Let's work together to save ourselves.