It's the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh Economy, Stupid

It's funny--yet not really funny at all--how the current economic crisis suddenly exploded into public view just a few short weeks before the end of the Bush-Cheney-Rove-Limbaugh Administration. And lawmakers were given something like one week to come up with massive amounts of bailout cash, or else the American and world economies would all swirl down the tube like a flushed toilet.

Conspiracy theorists might postulate that Republican insiders were frantically trying to keep the meltdown hidden until BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh made it out of office, so the economy then would implode just after President Barack Obama was inaugurated. And Democrats would get all of the blame for the collapse just as they tried to put forth their agenda of change and help for the downtrodden middle class and poor.

Anyway, it all blew up on the GOP's watch, and the elephant boys now are feeling the wrath from people all over America and the world while they frantically try to deflect the criticism toward President Obama--and make it "his" economy.


“Never underestimate the capacity of angry populism in times of economic stress,” Robert Reich, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and labor secretary under President Bill Clinton, recently told the New York Times. “A big challenge for President Obama will be to maintain a rational and tactical public discussion in the midst of this severe downturn. The desire for culprits at times like this is strong.”

The blame needs to stay squarely on the true culprits: the "free market" Republicans who pushed financial regulation almost completely out of the economy and let crooks, pirates and others driven by greed take over and rip us off while steering corporations, funds and worker benefits straight into the ground.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney recently has said "Don't blame us for this mess." He was just trying--very unsuccessfully--to steer the spotlight away from the economic sins of the past eight years, during which he helped advise and preside.

It's still not Barack Obama's economy--not yet. We're still trying to cope with the financial horrors of the BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh economy. And we will continue trying to cope with them for many months to come, until the Obama Administration's frantic flurry of emergency measures finally starts turning things around.

So, yes, do blame the free-market, anti-regulation Republicans for this current mess. Keep the spotlights squarely focused on BushCheneyRoveLimbaugh--and make them keep paying the electric bills for the illumination, as well.

For a long while, it seemed that the messes in Iraq and Afghanistan would be their main--and dubious--legacy. But those are small potatoes now, compared with the huge pile of burnt hash browns the GOP and their free-market cronies have made out of the American and global economies.

Once a recovery starts to take hold, remember who refused to help and cooperate in our nation's time of peril: the House Republicans and their incessant "No!" votes against the Obama Administration's proposals; and most (but not all) of the Senate Republicans, who keep clinging to the failed policies that nearly sent us into the Great Depression of 2009.

Oh, and especially the real head of the Republican Party: Rush "I Hope Obama Fails" Limbaugh.

--Si Dunn