Obama Blames … For … (You Fill In The Blanks) [Reader Post]

Have you ever noticed that NOTHING is Obama’s fault? Have you noticed that everything that Obama dislikes is NEVER his fault? Have you ever noticed that everything Obama likes, such as the killing of Osama bin Laden, is something he alone accomplished? For example, he takes credit for creating the nation of South Sudan, Chryrsler’s rebound, for spending cuts he fought, and for ending combat in Iraq.

The “Blame Game”

Here are some of the occurrences that Obama has blamed on others and/or circumstances beyond his control. I am certain that you can think of others.

• On the country’s debt: Barack Obama deflected the blame for the debt by stating, “these are debts Congress ran up, implying that the debts are the fault of the Congress and that he was simply an innocent bystander. I would like to ask Obama who signed those debt bills, or if he vetoed the bills when they came to his desk?
• On the country’s credit rating downgrade: President Obama blamed a downgrade in the United States’ credit rating on political gridlock. Obama said he would offer his own recommendations for fixing the problem and cited again the need to raise taxes on wealthier Americans and make modest adjustments to popular but expensive entitlement programs. “Making these reforms doesn’t require any radical steps. What it does require is common sense and compromise. The problems are ‘imminently solvable’ but that political gridlock has made compromise difficult and has contributed to a picture of economic uncertainty.”
• On the country’s debt ceiling deal: President Obama demanded a big, long-term budget deal. He won’t sign anything less, he warns, asking, “If not now, when?” And he blames Republcans!
• Blame Bush for everything: Obama has reminded the public that he is facing problems “inherited” from the Bush administration. “What the administration is involved in now is the politics of attribution,” said Lawrence R. Jacobs, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota. “The trick,” Jacobs said, “is how do you shift blame to George Bush and retain any credibility on the idea that you are looking past partisan warfare? This looks like a doubling down on a very partisan approach.” Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, denied that the president has changed his tone toward the previous administration. He said Obama is “not trying to place blame, but he is trying to say clearly: Here’s what we’ve got and here’s our way out of it.”
• Obama blames companies, automation, arab spring and Japan’s tsunami, and the weather for Lack of Jobs:
  • Companies – President Obama urged businesses to “step up” and hire workers. Said Obama, “American taxpayers contributed to that process of stabilizing the economy. Companies have benefited from that, and they’re making a lot of money, and now’s the time for them to start betting on American workers and American products.”
  • Automation – President Obama blamed automation for lack of jobs. Said Obama, “There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more efficient with a lot fewer workers.” What jobs may have been lost due to efficiency advancements are made up elsewhere as consumers see their personal income worth more. Perhaps President Obama would like to go back to the horse and buggy days, when everything was more labor intensive and took longer/cost more, because then (to his thinking) there would be more jobs.
  • Arab spring and Japan’s tsunami – President Obama prefaces his comments on July jobs numbers by noting that 2011 has been “tumultuous year” thus far. Obama mentioned the Arab Springs across the middle east, and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan as reasons that halted economic growth in the United States. Obama also used these instances to explain the disappointing number of jobs created in July.
  • Obama blames weather – White House economic adviser Larry Summers said on Monday winter blizzards were likely to distort U.S. February jobless figures, which are due to be released on Friday. “The blizzards that affected much of the country during the last month are likely to distort the statistics. So it’s going to be very important … to look past whatever the next figures are to gauge the underlying trends.”
• Obama blames oil companies for not drilling: Obama is arguing that the oil companies themselves may be to blame for the fact that there isn’t more drilling. Obama claimed repeatedly that he is not against drilling, then made the following comments: “There is more we can do, however. For example, right now, the (oil) industry holds leases on tens of millions of acres – both offshore and on land – where they aren’t producing a thing. So I’ve directed the Interior Department to determine just how many of these leases are going undeveloped and report back to me within two weeks so that we can encourage companies to develop the leases they hold and produce American energy. People deserve to know that the energy they depend on is being developed in a timely manner.”
• Obama blames speculators for high energy prices: President Barack Obama blamed speculators for driving up gasoline prices, saying there was enough oil in world markets to meet demand. Said Obama, “I know that if you’ve got a limited budget and you just watch that hard-earned money going away to oil companies that will once again probably make record profits this quarter, it’s pretty frustrating. The problem is … speculators and people make various bets, and they say, you know what, we think that maybe there’s a 20 percent chance that something might happen in the Middle East that might disrupt oil supply, so we’re going to bet that oil is going to go up real high. And that spikes up prices significantly.”

So Where Are We? The “Blame Game” Is Spreading

The unemployment rate is still above 9%, the GDP growth is below 2%, this country lacks a realistic energy policy, the markets (14:00 Monday, 8 Aug 11) is down [the Dow-Jones average is 10918, the S&P 500 is 1129, and the NASDAQ is 2382], and one of the three main credit rating services (Standard & Poor’s) downgraded the US credit rating fro AAA to AA+, and Moody’s has downgraded its credit rating to negative, and to It’s complicated. A negative rating means that Moody’s could downgrade the country’s sovereign credit rating within a year or two. Moody’s still rates US bonds AAA. Obama continues to play the “blame game”while the country continue to crumble around him. Everything Obama (and his administration) have tried and hasn’t worked is always met with some “reason” (blame) and the desire to spend more money (stimulus and/or QE) that we do not have.

Said Justin Ruben, executive director at MoveOn.org, “It’s a terrible deal that will destroy jobs and big part of reason is because president accepted the premise that it was okay to hold economy hostage. Instead of saying, ‘this is outrageous’ and ‘You will not threaten the full faith and credit of the U.S.,’ and telling America what the Republicans are doing, he sat down and said, ‘let’s bargain’ and tried to show he was more reasonable.” Ruben’s demand for less compromise is in direct opposition to the President’s attempts to bring both sides together. Mr. Ruben’s spun the whole outcome by saying that the deal itself is what threatens the “full faith and credit of the US.” Does Ruben not understand the link between debt and credit rating?

And now Senator John Kerry (D-MA) blames the tea party for this country’s credit downgrade. Said Kerry on this past Sunday’s “Meet the Press,” “I believe that this is without question the Tea Party downgrade. This is the Tea Party downgrade because a minority of people in the House of Representatives countered even the will of many Republicans in the United States Senate who were prepared to do a bigger deal to do $4.7 trillion, $4 trillion, [that had] a mix of reductions and reforms in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, but also recognize that we needed to do some revenue.”

Said David Axelrod on this past Sunday’s “Face the Nation,” “For months, the president was saying, let’s get together, let’s compromise. We thought we had such an arrangement with the Speaker of the House… then he went back to his caucus; he had to yield to the most strident voices in his party. They played brinksmanship with the full faith and credit of the United States. This was the result in that. The fact of the matter is that this is essentially a Tea Party downgrade. That clearly is on the backs of those who were willing to see the country default.”

But that’s just my opinion.