The first thing I wrote was that I didn't really blame the mess on Obama. But, Nat, again . . I think you too-quickly discount the role of the Dems is deregulation . . at least of mortgage lending rules, which helped greatly in bringing about the sub-prime mortgage mess. As for the Iraq war . . . didn't Congress have to appropriate funds for the war? And, if you looking at the voting on war funding, a lot of Dems voted in favor of that also. That is one thing we can hold Obama faultless on, as he did vote against such funding.
But, as I have noted before, Obama isn't the only one who is faulted no matter what he does (at least in some quarters). Had U.S. not taken action against Saddam Hussein when intelligence, British as well as American, indicated he had WMD, and if an attack ensued in U.S. or Western Europe, it would have all been Bush's and America's fault. Remember that Hussein was reportedly interfering with and steering the inspections by UN inspectors who were trying to ascertain if he was abiding by the proscriptions against WMD. If he wanted the West to be reassured, why did he interfere with this process? To the contrary, he seemed to want Western leaders to think he had WMD's. So, in part, he brought on the invasion, perhaps wanting to start Jihad.
The war has been expensive, but what started our collapse was the "global economy", agreements such as NAFTA, and having American manufacturing relocate to other countries. Parties as diverse as Rush Limbaugh to Bill Clinton promoted this debacle, which resulted in the outsourcing of many American jobs, great increases in our national debt to foreign countries, the American economy being dependent upon constant purchases by Americans (since few foreigners were buying anything Americans still made), Americans over-using credit and withdrawing equity from their homes. If "blame" is important we can blame politicians of every stripe. But, blame does not get us out of this hellish mess.
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