There’s an old joke from the FDR administration about how the rich blamed everything that went wrong on Roosevelt.
It’s about a banker who gets up one morning at five A.M. He has five eggs, five strips of bacon and five slices of toast for breakfast. He waits five minutes for the No. 5 bus that takes him to work on Fifth Avenue. He goes into his office on the fifth floor and after his fifth cup of coffee he notices, on page five of his paper, that there’s a horse called "Five Aces" (number five, of course) running in the fifth race. He knows a sign from God when he sees one; he immediately calls five bookies and places five bets of $5,555 to win on the five horse in the fifth race.
It comes in fifth.
The banker throws his coffee across the room, kicks his cat, and tears his coat in half as he screams, "THAT SONOFABITCH ROOSEVELT!"
I tell that old joke because we are living in it.
Right-wing pundits, the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, have been referring to the current economic crisis as the "Obama recession." Seriously. They’re trying to blame the current economic crisis, which seems to have started years ago on GWB’s watch, on Barack Obama. Never mind that Obama isn’t even President yet, that he won’t be President until January, that the economy started falling apart years ago and the collapse was in full swing before the election was even over, back when McCain was still a strong contender and perhaps even the President-to-be (well, it looked that way for a time). Never mind all that...Obama is to blame. Yeah. Right.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I’ve heard about this for a couple of days, and today I decided to look into it. Looking for "obama recession" on Google I looked for the first reference. Rush Limbaugh first used the phrase (as far as I can tell) on November 6. I was able to turn up a post on the Drudge Retort from October 13 and blog post from October 11. I only went back three pages into the Google results--I’m not made of free time—but it was clear that the phrase was in use for at least a month before the election. (The Drudge post went further, calling it the "Pelosi-Reid-Obama recession.")
I looked up the Rush Limbaugh reference from November 6. Interestingly enough, he actually stated that he believed that the collapse in the financial market was due to anxiety over fears of what Obama might do in six to nine months. Huh?
Then in the very next breath, he says, "That 4,000-point drop, that was also due to Obama." As for evidence of what he claims, well there isn’t any. That doesn’t seem to stop him from making, and repeating, that claim.
He also goes on to make several other far-fetched claims, but the main thrust of what he’s saying remains; that despite the absence of any evidence, despite Obama’s lack of any involvement in the financial crisis to date, despite the fact that Obama wasn't in a position to have any effect on the crisis while GWB certainly was, in Rush’s view it’s all Obama’s fault.
This is, plainly, insane.
Obama shouldn’t feel bad about being in company with Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his day, Roosevelt was also called a communist, a radical, a leftist, an enemy of business and America. And a lot of things that even I won’t publish. But if I were Obama, I wouldn’t fret much over being placed in Roosevelt’s historic circle.
I wonder...if Obama mentioned "New Deal" would it be enough to cause Limbaugh to die of apoplexy?
The Blues Viking
Further reading
The "enhanced" transcript of what Limbaugh said at his web site
Right-wing media feeds its post-election anger (LA Times)
It’s about a banker who gets up one morning at five A.M. He has five eggs, five strips of bacon and five slices of toast for breakfast. He waits five minutes for the No. 5 bus that takes him to work on Fifth Avenue. He goes into his office on the fifth floor and after his fifth cup of coffee he notices, on page five of his paper, that there’s a horse called "Five Aces" (number five, of course) running in the fifth race. He knows a sign from God when he sees one; he immediately calls five bookies and places five bets of $5,555 to win on the five horse in the fifth race.
It comes in fifth.
The banker throws his coffee across the room, kicks his cat, and tears his coat in half as he screams, "THAT SONOFABITCH ROOSEVELT!"
I tell that old joke because we are living in it.
Right-wing pundits, the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, have been referring to the current economic crisis as the "Obama recession." Seriously. They’re trying to blame the current economic crisis, which seems to have started years ago on GWB’s watch, on Barack Obama. Never mind that Obama isn’t even President yet, that he won’t be President until January, that the economy started falling apart years ago and the collapse was in full swing before the election was even over, back when McCain was still a strong contender and perhaps even the President-to-be (well, it looked that way for a time). Never mind all that...Obama is to blame. Yeah. Right.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
I’ve heard about this for a couple of days, and today I decided to look into it. Looking for "obama recession" on Google I looked for the first reference. Rush Limbaugh first used the phrase (as far as I can tell) on November 6. I was able to turn up a post on the Drudge Retort from October 13 and blog post from October 11. I only went back three pages into the Google results--I’m not made of free time—but it was clear that the phrase was in use for at least a month before the election. (The Drudge post went further, calling it the "Pelosi-Reid-Obama recession.")
I looked up the Rush Limbaugh reference from November 6. Interestingly enough, he actually stated that he believed that the collapse in the financial market was due to anxiety over fears of what Obama might do in six to nine months. Huh?
Then in the very next breath, he says, "That 4,000-point drop, that was also due to Obama." As for evidence of what he claims, well there isn’t any. That doesn’t seem to stop him from making, and repeating, that claim.
He also goes on to make several other far-fetched claims, but the main thrust of what he’s saying remains; that despite the absence of any evidence, despite Obama’s lack of any involvement in the financial crisis to date, despite the fact that Obama wasn't in a position to have any effect on the crisis while GWB certainly was, in Rush’s view it’s all Obama’s fault.
This is, plainly, insane.
Obama shouldn’t feel bad about being in company with Franklin D. Roosevelt. In his day, Roosevelt was also called a communist, a radical, a leftist, an enemy of business and America. And a lot of things that even I won’t publish. But if I were Obama, I wouldn’t fret much over being placed in Roosevelt’s historic circle.
I wonder...if Obama mentioned "New Deal" would it be enough to cause Limbaugh to die of apoplexy?
The Blues Viking
Further reading
The "enhanced" transcript of what Limbaugh said at his web site
Right-wing media feeds its post-election anger (LA Times)
The opinions here expressed are mine and if you don’t like them you can get your own damn blog.
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2 comments:
I believe that the free market with regulation should be like a bike with brakes. Brakes should be there when things go bad, and feathering early is better than slamming on late.
So, how do I blame this crisis on Obama. Get real!!! Even *** I *** can't manage that.
This crisis is the result of too big a vehicle going to fast on a smooth road that turns to dirt. Picture test riding a new Harley at American Harley in Ann Arbor and peeling out of the lot in a full dresser Harley, doing 90 MPH south on Zeeb Road (48105). Nice road, lots of growth, coffee shops... down to the big subdivision of $1 Million McMansions, Escalades in the drive, phat stock portfolios.
You roll thru the Liberty stop sign at 40mph (no cops, we're good), roll it on again. You're doing 90 and it starts to rain, but with that windshield, you're fine. You turn on your stereo, listen to Born to Run. You fail to notice the 4-way stop sign at Scio Church and blow through.
You glance at the GPS to see how far till Pleasant Lake road, where there is this great house you want to buy. You fail to wonder what that red line on the GPS road means.
Between the tunes, the GPS and the rain on your windshield (no wipers), you fail to notice the "pavement ends sign". You hit the dirt at 100 mph. The dirt is mud, and you grab the brakes. You don't have ABS, so the back fishtails, the front digs into the mud and the bike does a pumpkin roll. You go flying and because Jennifer Granholm vetoed your freedom of choice ;-), your helmet saves your skull, but not the rest of you. EVERY OTHER bone in your body is crushed as the bike catches up to you and rolls over you.
A cop (who from way behind you observed your speed and running the stop sign) comes flying over the hill, hits the same mud, sees you in the middle of the road, stomps on the brakes. His ABS stops him in time. He checks to see if you're still alive (doubtful). He finds a quadriplegic.
As you lie there, wishing you knew then what you know now, you ask him "Why didn't you warn me of this!"
Greed on Wall Street PLUS greed on Zeeb Road caused this crisis. Can we bail them out! YES, WE CAN!
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
Hell of a good metaphor. Wish I'd thought of it. -BV
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