Richard Larsen thinks so:
Usually good humor works because it’s based on a modicum of truth. Sometimes attempts at humor are funny because they’re so far removed from the truth. Such was the case with the Journal’s editorial cartoon in Friday’s paper. It depicted Barack Obama attempting to resuscitate a persona labeled “Economy” extricated from waters where it was apparently on the verge of drowning, while the GOP sat comfortably on a lounge sipping a beverage of undisclosed composition. The cartoon was obviously drawn either by an Obama ideologue (one of those believers in the elusive “hope and change” mantra) or someone just ignorant to fact and oblivious to history.
Put in accurate contemporary perspective, the cartoon may have needed several frames. The first, starting with Obama’s election, would have had him dunking the economy in the water (sea of debt) with his first round of spending increases (modified bailout). The second frame would have had him nearly drowning the economy with a failed trillion dollar (with interest payments) “stimulus,” that was more political payback than it was economic stimulus.
The next few frames would have been Obama’s repeated attempts at drowning the economy in the sea of debt with FinReg, ObamaCare, significantly expanded EPA job-destroying regulations, “Cash for Clunkers,” and another 608 regulations imposed in July alone by the administration. All the while, the Pelosi and Reid Congress was helping him dunk the economy, attempting to hold it under the sea of debt, and cheering Obama on from the bank. For accuracy, the cartoon should’ve shown congressional conservatives attempting to save the economy by preventing Obama from dunking it again, and striving to find the drain plug to the sea of debt, and looking for buckets to lower the debt level.
In contrast, let's first look back to the beginning of Obama's presidency.
From the Christian Science Monitor (February 18, 2009):
Few Americans have any idea how bad the financial problems are that President Obama inherited from the Bush administration. Never mind the housing bubble, the bank meltdown, or the bailout scandals – I am talking about the failure of federal government to honestly account either for its own actions or for America's most important programs: Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid.
George W. Bush took office after three years of budget surpluses under President Bill Clinton. Eight years later, Obama walked into the Oval Office to find – gift-wrapped with a bow, as he recently joked – almost $11 trillion in Treasury debt, and deficits of more than $1 trillion a year for the foreseeable future. That's a $30,000 burden on every man, woman, and child in America, on top of the taxes they are already paying. Under better management, that number could have been zero.
Where were the "congressional conservatives attempting to save the economy," who Larsen points out, at that time?
If this weren't bad enough, President Bush's financial legacy is marred by other fundamental problems. Bush's team borrowed more than $1 trillion from the Social Security "trust fund" and seemed to spend it on everything except Social Security. Like Blanche DuBois in Tennessee Williams's "Streetcar Named Desire," Social Security now depends on the kindness of strangers – namely, future taxpayers and foreign lenders.
While Larsen expresses that Congress was "helping him dunk the economy," Obama expresses skepticism in Congress itself.
This report came out today:
Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser, Obama defended his economic record and noted that problems in Europe were affecting the United States.
"We do have a serious problem in terms of debt and deficit, and much of it I inherited," he said. The financial crisis, he said, made the problem worse. Obama noted that the United States had seen 17 months of consecutive private sector job growth, rising corporate profits and stabilized credit markets under his watch.
"What's absolutely true, even before these last couple days in the stock market, is that recovery wasn't happening fast enough," he said. "When you have problems in Europe and in Spain and in Italy and in Greece, those problems wash over into our shores," he said.
Obama is pressing for Congress to extend a payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance to help boost the economy, but he expressed skepticism that lawmakers would get a lot done. "As president of the United States my job is to work with Congress to try to get as much done as possible," he said. "Whether we're going to see any progress out of this Congress right now - because so far we haven't seen much when it comes to innovative ideas that actually put people to work and grow the economy - remains to be seen."
A Larsen line above bears repeating: "The cartoon was obviously drawn either by an Obama ideologue (one of those believers in the elusive “hope and change” mantra) or someone just ignorant to fact and oblivious to history."
However, with cost estimates of Bush's War in Iraq (what exactly was the return on that investment?) being between 1 and three trillion dollars, how can any reasonable person who looks at history not desire and hope for change?