It is especially tough if you are Barack Obama, the first black American president who happened to be elected during the worst economic downturn since the Depression. Clearly, expectations were very high when he was elected just about one year ago.
But, as I have pointed out on several occasions, a president cannot choose the conditions that exist when he takes office. He (and, at this point, I want to make it clear for my female readers that I use that pronoun knowing that, technically, a woman could be elected president — but I use "he" for the sake of simplicity and accuracy since, in an historical context, a woman has not been elected president yet) knows the conditions that exist when he begins his candidacy — and, when Obama began his campaign for the Democratic nomination, the major issue at that time was the war in Iraq.
The economic meltdown did not occur until after Obama had been nominated, and it quickly became the focal point. He didn't anticipate it, but who did? (Nostradamus, perhaps?)
I have been dismayed — and I have said so, frequently — by the insistence of Obama and his supporters on blaming George W. Bush and the Republicans for everything. Throughout my life, it has been my belief that a president is elected to lead the nation and, if necessary, clean up the mess that was left by his predecessor. When he puts his left hand on the Bible and raises his right hand to take the oath of office, he takes ownership of what he finds waiting for him when he enters the Oval Office.
At that point, the book is closed on his predecessor, and the new president's meter is running.
It is unseemly, in my opinion, for a president and his supporters to constantly point their fingers at the previous administration, no matter how challenging the situation may be. Also, in my opinion, it has been unseemly for those supporters to play the race card when some people don't buy the idea of blaming the last president.
Back in 1982, Ronald Reagan and the Republicans tried to do the same thing (minus the race card) and blamed Jimmy Carter for problems they had been unable to resolve in Reagan's first two years in office. In the months before the 1982 election, bumper stickers began popping up that said, "It's getting harder and harder to blame Carter." And, lo and behold, when the voters went to the polls, they punished the Republicans. I always felt that they did so in part because they resented the way the Republicans had been passing the buck.
Today, I read a column that I encourage everyone to read. It was written by Charles Krauthammer for the Washington Post, and it speaks of this very subject.
Krauthammer opens with an "old Soviet joke" that I never heard before, but it is appropriate:
"Moscow, 1953. Stalin calls in Khrushchev.
" 'Niki, I'm dying. Don't have much to leave you. Just three envelopes. Open them, one at a time, when you get into big trouble.'
"A few years later, first crisis. Khrushchev opens envelope 1: 'Blame everything on me. Uncle Joe.'
"A few years later, a really big crisis. Opens envelope 2: 'Blame everything on me. Again. Good luck, Uncle Joe.'
"Third crisis. Opens envelope 3: 'Prepare three envelopes.' "
Then Krauthammer ties that joke to modern America.
"In the Barack Obama version, there are 50 or so such blame–Bush free passes before the gig is up," he writes. "By my calculation, Obama has already burned through a good 49. Is there anything he hasn't blamed George W. Bush for? The economy, global warming, the credit crisis, Middle East stalemate, the deficit, anti–Americanism abroad — everything but swine flu."
I don't want to steal Krauthammer's thunder. I'll just urge you to read his column.
I will simply add this.
Krauthammer's column is mostly about the Obama policy in Afghanistan. But his conclusion is applicable to the entire Obama presidency:
"[I]t is time he acted like a president ... He's used up his envelopes."
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