History for Amnesiacs: How Obama became President.

Pres. Obama's honeymoon with conservatives lasted about 3 weeks past his inauguration, if I remember correctly. After that, conservatives started asking how we ended up with such a crappy person as president. He was a far-left liberal socialist illegitimate anti-American apologist foisted on them by idiot liberal Democrats.

The amnesia has only gotten deeper, with many people again wondering how this happened. This is a reminder.

In the Democratic nomination, the race was between Hillary Clinton vs. Barack Obama. John Edwards was a distant third, so most Democrats (including me) were going to choose between Hillary and Obama. Since  Bush had done such a crappy job on the Iraq war and financial crisis, it was obvious early on that the Democratic candidate was likely to win. If anyone doubts this point, I'll write another installment to help you remember.

I'm not absolutely sure how we chose Obama over Hillary. Partly he was the more inspiring speaker. Partly we sensed that the country didn't want alternating dynastic rule:  Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton. Partly Obama gave some false dog whistles to the progressive Nader/Kucinich wing and they bought it. Maybe we favored the underdog versus the Clinton machine.

In my case, I honestly hoped for greater bipartisan cooperation, and thought Obama had the better chance at creating it. After all, the Republicans had been so thoroughly investigating Bill and Hillary for 16 years and sharpening their knives, I thought there would no peace if Hillary was in the White House.

Let's review:

1. We had to choose between Hillary and Obama. 
2. Hillary already had a huge target on her back. 
3. So Democrats picked Obama. 

Conservatives, if you hate Obama so much, you can partly blame yourselves. Maybe you shouldn't have been so shitty to Bill and Hillary, because you helped make Obama the viable candidate he was.

History for Amnesiacs: Obama's recession

It irks me when conservatives say that Obama owns this economic mess. He came into office during the deepest recession since the Great Depression. The job losses were staggering. I don't know how an honest person can forget this. I thought the stimulus was the right thing to do, and I think it prevented an even deeper recession, though we can't be sure.

No one can turn our economy around on a dime. A deep recession like this, with a crisis in our entire financial sector, is not going to be fixed in one year or a couple years. This cancer grew for years, throughout Bush II's presidency, and for a while before that. This rot was characterized by dodgy mortgages and many other financial instruments like credit default swaps. It flared up in Enron's bankruptcy and the manipulation that caused the California power crisis in 2000 and 2001. How Obama could be responsible for all this is beyond me. Consider this: Roosevelt didn't own the Great Depression, even though it stretched through two of his terms.

If anyone owns this recession, it is Bush and the Republicans. They didn't rein in the financial and housing sector. There was plenty of evidence that fraud was permeating the sector years before the crash. I knew it based, amazingly, on reports on NPR and internet news. Anyone could get an income statement for any amount from an internet company, and use that fake statement to get a mortgage. If it's on NPR, why weren't there congressional hearings and congressional committee tightening up regulation and oversight? This is why I'm bitter when diehard Republicans or tea partiers blame Obama for the economy. I know it was screwed before he took office.

What's the fix for this financial dallying that has wreaked so much damage? It takes people with more financial knowledge than me to say. I can't analyze Dodd-Frank, and this blog isn't the place. Analyzing the blame-game, that I can do. So, I call bullshit on "it's Obama's fault."