…because if he were, he would have done nothing at all for the last three years, and just let things get worse, until the people couldn’t think of anything better than to elect someone more like Frank D. Roosevelt than like, say for example, Ron Paul, or someone else who thinks the economy can fix itself. (I don’t know if it can, but I do know it can break itself.)
One can wonder whether any of the Republican candidates and fault-finders would have been able to do anything different about the situation Mr. Bush left behind: two expensive wars and a recession at least partly caused by his administration’s failure to manage corporate greed.
The decision to spend our way out of recession wasn’t perfect, but recall that there was a great deal of unanimity about it among the leaders of countries with developed economies. It also happens to accord with macroeconomic theory. And admit that the recession is over – otherwise, logically speaking, there couldn’t be a “double dip” to worry about. And then you also have to admit that the macroeconomic theory relied on is valid, and to that extent, so was the reliance.
Unfortunately for Mr. Obama, things weren’t bad enough for long enough for people to realize they needed policies that are connected to the people who are doing the suffering. Or they knew it well enough to elect him, but then, the impression not having gone deep enough (the way it did with Hoover), they forgot.
The fact is people don’t pay any attention even to recent history and don’t find arguments with historical premises at all persuasive. So I’m spinning my wheels here in the muck of short-sighted self-indulgence. But Obama is not Hoover. I’m just asking people to forgive him for coming into office before they could suffer under Republicanism even more than they did – long enough to understand the value and meaning of Democratic principles.
