A few years ago, when Elizabeth Edwards was diagnosed with breast cancer, I was reading an article about it and there was a link which you could use to email her well wishes. At the time, my wife had already been fighting the disease for a few years, so I knew what this woman was facing and, overcome by compassion, I sent her an email wishing her well. Imagine my surprise when that email immediately landed me on the DCCC email list--I wouldn't have thought Democrats would stoop so low as to use cancer as a tool to increase their sales penetration, but they did, so now I receive the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) emails on a regular basis. At first I was upset and tried emailing back and asking them to take me off the list, but I never got a response. However, after a while I started reading the emails, and I was shocked at some of the hatred and vitriol spewing forth. I mean, after all, this is the official campaign arm for congressional Democrats, not Daily Kos or something.
Anyway, so I'm reading today's DCCC posting, and the headline is, "@Stake: Back to Bush." I got to thinking whether or not this is a smart strategy on the Democrats' part, so I started comparing Bush to Obama. After all, this country, this economy, this deficit, this security situation, it's all Obama's now. He was elected almost two years ago. He owns it. So, let me share with you some comparisons between the two:
For George W. Bush's entire eight years in office, the average unemployment rate was 5.2%. This includes inheriting a recession from Bill Clinton (although did you ever hear him complain about his inheritance as much as Obama has complained about his?), and it includes the aftermath of 9/11. Obama also inherited a recession, but while Bush's tax cuts spurred the economy and got it going, Obama's huge explosion of deficit spending and government intrusion has not done anything to speak of, unless you believe their malarkey about "jobs saved". What a neat, convenient statistic to invent! Obama's average unemployment rate for his entire presidency so far is 9.2%! The numbers get even more stark the more you look.
While President Bush was excoriated by Obama on the campaign trail for running a then-record $450 billion dollar deficit, Obama's first budget contained a deficit of approximately $1.4 TRILLION!! For those who don't know, a trillion is a thousand billions. (A billion is a thousand millions). Now, he has argued that he had to spend these huge sums on a "stimulus" because of Bush, but his budget blueprint calls for deficits in excess of $1 trillion until at least 2020, at which time the total federal deficit will be in excess of $18 trillion dollars! At that point, the number one cost in our budget will be interest on the debt. When Bush left office, the federal deficit stood at $5.8 trillion. If Obama's deficits are because of Bush, why do they run at roughly the same levels for a decade? Do we need a stimulus each year for the next ten years?
After 9/11, which was planned for years, the policies Bush implemented kept this country safe and free of terror attacks. Choosing where to fight the battle (Iraq) was brilliant, because if you choose the battlefield, you are one step up on the opponent. The terrorists all flocked to Iraq, where we killed them by the dump-truck load. Afghanistan was much more hostile territory, so keeping up the hunt for bin Laden there and destroying the Taliban were the objectives. The major battle in the Western civilization vs. Muslim extremists war was Iraq, and all the terrorists said so too. Making them fight over there kept them away from here. Obama has reversed all these policies. He is pulling out of Iraq and intensifying the fight in Afghanistan. He hasn't read many history books, or even talked to many people from the former Soviet Union. Putin could tell him this was a bad idea. Now we're mired in a Vietnam-type war in mountainous, murderous terrain, and our casualties are skyrocketing. Not only that, but we have had a terrorist mass shooting at Fort Hood, and the young Nigerian man who tried to blow up an airliner over Detroit only failed because his bomb didn't ignite properly. Because of Obama's policies, in other words, the terrorists are bringing the fight here.
There are many more comparisons between these two presidents, and the longer Obama is in office, the more Bush's approval ratings go up. I've recounted many of the lies told by this administration, and I remember people accusing Bush of lying all the time. What did he lie about? Certainly not WMD's. Every major intelligence organization on the planet believed Saddam Hussein had them, and he probably did. He probably sent them to Syria or buried them in the desert, but the truth is that even if he didn't have them, Bush didn't lie--he was wrong. What else did Bush lie about? Nothing that I know of. Obama doesn't seem to be able to tell the truth about anything--watch his no new taxes pledge go up in smoke after his "deficit commission" issues its recommendations--a deficit commission formed by him to fix a problem caused by his policies. No wonder government's getting bigger!
Here are a few more differences: Bush throws out the first pitch at a baseball game and looks like a former player. Obama doesn't look nearly as athletic. Did you see his pitch? Bush talked in an optimistic manner about what we were going to do and what we could achieve. All Obama talks about is what a horrible hand he's been dealt. While some foreign leaders might not have liked Bush, they respected him. He was a president who commanded respect, and with whom other nations didn't want to screw around. Obama started his presidency apologizing to Muslims first (his first interview was to Al Jazeera), and then the rest of the world. He's bowed at the waist to everyone from the emperor of Japan to the king of Saudi Arabia. It just isn't becoming for a president.
So you decide. Think long and hard. Lose the hyperbolic rhetoric of the Bush years and remember them for what they really were. Years of growth, of economic expansion, and of security. Years during which this country was respected. Compare that with the Obama record so far. My advice to Democrats? Don't frame the election as an Obama vs. Bush decision. That may make the losses you're going to suffer in November much worse.
