This post echoes my sentiments about how well Obama is doing by pointing out that on British Petroleum he is more in sync with the public than the Joe Bartons that have accused him of shaking down big business. (Where the hell was Barton and company on the banks?)
As the comment in parentheses suggests Republicans and their pet pundits have largely hopped on the populist bandwagon and accused Obama of shielding the bankers. In my view it is popular but irresponsible not to acknowledge that allowing the damned mega banks to fail would have plunged the world into a Depression not unlike the one we suffered in the 1930’s. Of course, since he didn’t stick it to the banks we’ll never know for sure but I think the state of economic analysis that we’ve attained makes a sufficiently cogent case for Obama’s actions.
By the way I made one comment at the DFL endorsing convention that drew Roger Reinert’s subtle fire. I had said that I much preferred the political parties of my youth that both labored to hold center court to the two parties today that both dote on their extremes. I then added a little too carelessly that I thought Obama had pulled the Democrats back to the center where I preferred them to be.
Roger said that he felt the Democrats had always been a centrist party in the 36 years years he’d been a Democrat.
If I had expounded at length on the issue I would have said that Bill Clinton (who I voted for in 1980 although not in 1984) had brought the Democrats back to the center and that is exactly why he was such a threat to the GOP that when given a half ass excuse (Monica Lewensky) they went ape _ _ _ _ and impeached him.
The Party of Gore, Kerry and now Obama is still firmly in the center of American politics. But Roger is wrong. Thirty six years ago (1974) the Democrats were still under the influence of narrow interest groups that were still on a high from the Age of Aquarius and damned self righteous about it too. If Reagan accomplished nothing else he brought them down from the high.
I’m still confident that Obama will win reelection because the GOP have placed too many land mines in the ground where sensible Republican candidates might want to tread. When they blow up under these poor centrists they have to apologize to Rush Limbaugh for not being sufficiently politically correct. That’s the burden of a dittohead.
