Simple Hypocrisy Test
Remember the heat that Bush took over his reinauguration? His critics blasted him for having a lavish event during tough times. Well, the economy is certainly worse today than it was four years ago. This is a golden opportunity for those critics to prove that they weren't just partisan hacks.
It's a simple enough thing to compare the amounts spent between the two. Does anyone think that Obama will underspend the Bush effort from 2005? Think anyone of the prior critics will point out the record breaking fund raising that Obama has already undertaken and ask why he isn't just using that money for the party?
I thought that the criticism of Bush was silly then and I'll only criticize Obama if his gala goes over the top. Inaugurals are big deals and large national events are expensive. Let's see where others come down.
posted by Peder @ 4:58 AM
4 Comments:
I think I remember it differently than you. These "tough times" you refer to were not economic, aside from the defecit for which Bush is directly responsible; the primary "tough times" is the war in Iraq, for which he is also directly responsible. The specific criticisms were that it seems like an awful lot of money was raised quickly to throw a lavish party for the guy who sent a lot of young Americans to war without proper armor on the vehicles or even for their body. That's the kind of money we should be able to raise and spend quickly.
I didn't think the criticicm had anything to do with the economy, but I'm glad you acknowledge that 4 more years under Bush policies did not bode well for our nation's economy.
I thought I understood those criticisms regarding the inaguration ball, but I never took them seriously as they were a bit petty and I thought we had way too many far bigger issues to care about.
I feel that way now too. My party has an insurmountable task ahead of it. 2 wars, an economic tsunami, health care, energy crisis, environment, voting issues, rebuilding good government unifying the country and fix whatever else the Bush administration manages to screw up in the next 70 days.
Your own party has some issues too, it has to rebuild itself, which I'm confident it will. It may have to deal with the aftermath of electing a felon to the US Senate. It has to deal with the reelection of class act Rep. Bachmann. It needs to figure out who is in charge.
The big question is...will your party and it's supporters focus on making itself better able to lead this nation or will the focus be on trying to prevent others from succeeding?
James, it was the petty nature of the original complaint that makes this a good test. And for the record, I think the roots of the current economic mess are much deeper than the Bush administration. They go back to the beginning of the housing bubble (96?) and have bipartisan fingerprints all over them. BTW, I can forsee four years of blaming any Bush for all the problems in the world. Would you like to set a time limit at which time Obama becomes responsible?
Apparently right now, Sean Hannity has already deemed this the "Obama Recession", lol.
Sorry, I had to get that jab in, it was a cheap shot, Hannity is an easy target, unfortunately so many in the GOP look up to him.
We agree this goes beyond Bush, we agree there is bi-partisan fault. I would argue the American people have more to do with this than they would like to admit, many examples, but the most obvious being a lot of mortgages were agreed to by people who didn't exactly apply prudent thought to the biggest financial decision of their lives. I think you understand this current economic crisis is so big that the housing part of it is just a small part of the problem, so I would argue it goes back much further than 96.
The blame for Bush has two components though...1. is the direct blame for his policies, his lack of leadership, his deregulation and his instruction to oversight agencies to not worry so much about oversight. and 2. A very symbolic blame for the policies he embodies...when you spend your whole administration and basically your life saying that tax cuts, reduced regulation, and less oversight (with a dash of war here and there) are the answers to all our problems...and then spend 8 years with mostly unchecked powers to implement those policies and the economy crumbles around you....well then you have accept some blame, symbolically, for those who came before you with the same philosophy who also made significnt contributions to the collapse. And since this fella had his hand in just about every significant contribution to the collapse... he has earned the blame.
Even you must agree his policies are indefensible, is there anything he has done to prevent this collapse?
We still agree the comments 4 years ago were petty, but there isn't an apples to apples equality to the comparison which you are trying to imply. 4 years ago, the critics were essentially saying, wow Bush and buddies will suddenly spend all this money to party when they won't spend it on saving our soldiers lives, who by the way, because of him cannot enjoy much of a party at all. You can still say, hey Obama spent a lot of money on this party, but you can't say he failed to spend it on the troops body armor, you can't say he is the reason they are there, you can't say he is the reason for our failing economy.
Give him 4 years and maybe then you can apply your hypocrisy test with validity, hopefully, you will want to attend Obama's 2013 inaugural ball because America is just that much better off.
Tell you what James, I'll continue this discussion if you'll tell me which deregulations under Bush led to this. It would help if you could also tell me what regulations Dems argued for under Bush that would have helped. Keep in mind that numerous regulatory types across the world also failed, so please include that in your thinking as well.
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