O.k. So let me get this straight..............

[Proud Liberal Dem]

Step One: The Republicans go on a punch drunk "borrow and spend" rampage (at the same time not making nor requiring ANY "plans" to pay back the cost of their policies) and a "LET'S DEREGULATE EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE" mentality whenever they're in WH, which have consistently proven to cause HUGE budgt deficits and other myriad economic problems (i.e. financial meltdowns like the one that happened last year). The resulting economic chaos that we are thrown into is then (magically) blamed on the next Democratic POTUS who is then thoroughly demonized by Republicans and their enablers in the corporate media if they even think about raising taxes on the wealthiest 1% of our citizens or, even worse (*gasp*), propose new government programs to help people- many of whom are the victims of the latest Republican spending and deregulation rampage and did NOT get money "trickled down" to them as promised by Corporate America and their representatives in Congress nor were they sufficiently assisted by the *charitable impulses" of the wealthy and/or the faithful.

Step Two: The Republicans then leverage this *outrage* over the Democratic President's "reckless" and "irresponsible" spending to rewrite history and con everybody (with the willing and eager support of the corporate media whores of course) into (again) believing that THEY and ONLY THEY are the *true* "fiscally responsible" party so that they can get back into power and hobble a Democratic President's ability to get anything meaningful accomplished and to get back into the WH themselves- where they can go back to trashing the economy for everybody but themselves and their cronies.

This seems to be the Republican's M.O. and we seem to be seeing them use the same "playbook" that they used on Clinton back in 1993-1994 on Obama now. Obama was very smart to realize this and call them out on it the other night and maybe, because he knows what they are doing, we won't end up in the same predicament again after next year like we did back in 1994 but, despite the fact that the 2010 elections are a little more than a year away, the pundits and the pollsters are already out in full force predicting a fierce "backlash" against Obama and the Democrats in next year's midterm elections for their, you guessed it, "reckless" and "irresponsible" spending habits. This, desite the fact that Buscho left Obama and the Democrats a huge economic mess to clean up, as Obama smartly noted in his speech last week, and now the Republicans and their "teabagging" friends seem to be acting as though Obama is now TOTALLY responsible for Bushco's deficits (that deficit thing that Cheney said Reagan proved don't matter) and are busy trying to kill health care reform, as well as other reforms, regulations, etc. that Obama is trying to push through Congress- measures that will help the vast majority of people in this country- based on their newfound *concern* for the deficit and "working men and women" blah, blah, blah. The "Teabaggers" are out in full force accusing Obama of being a "socialist" (as if they have any idea what they're even talking about :eyes:) and spending our country into oblivion despite the fact that, whatever Obama has "added" to our deficit, it can NOT even begin to compare to the actual amounts racked up by Bushco during the past 8 years, especially since Buscho, like Enron, purposely cooked the books to make the budget deficit look "not so bad", accomplished primarily by separating out the "war funding" from the main budget.

It REALLY honks me off to no end hearing the same Republicans whom basically "rubber stamped" Bush's disastrous policies and initiatives when they controlled the WH and Congress for 6 years and those "teabaggers", indies, and other self-proclaimed "fiscal conservatives" constantly blast Obama for his economic policies when we heard so little protest, if anything, from them about any of Bushco's substantially more reckless and irresponsible economic policies that it had NO plans whatsoever for how to pay for during the past 8 years. They now hypocritically demand all kinds of "plans" and assurances for paying for his initiatives and/or that his initiatives will be "deficit neutral". Or, even worse, basically suggest that, because the economy is so bad right now (mostly because THEY made it that way), we can't have any new programs to help people get back on their feet and that our only real path to economic restoration lies only in CUTTING vital government programs (neat little plan, eh?). It just blows my mind the unmitigated gall of them to try to pretend to be fiscally responsible when, in reality, they are the very poster children for fiscal IRRESPONSBILITY and/or its greatest enablers.
:rant:

[me b zola]

1. Well, I hope you're sitting down, cause it gets worse

I just saw on AC 360 the guy that Freedomworks used to be their front-man say that they hated the way that bush* gave tax payer money to major corporations. Yup, that's right, the guy who's the face of a group funded by the health insurance lobby had the nerve to say that.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

3. I can maybe only think of one or two Republicans

during the Buscho-era that stood up and made noises about anything Buscho did during the past 8 years. John McCain, for all of his flaws, opposed some of Buscho's tax cuts and military spending (waste) in his first term and Jim Leach (R-IA) called for investigations of corruption in Iraq. There were probably a few other "profiles in Republican courage" during the past 8 years but not many. I don't trust nor care about most of these people whom are now selectively offended about Obama's spending and budget deficits.

[elleng]

2. They've been using the same playbook for decades,

and 'we' have never caught on or found a way to deal with it successfully.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. We desperately need to figure out how to deal with it

while we still have a mildly functioning country left. This pattern is killing our country and I'm not sure we can handle any more Republican rule, particularly after the past 8 years. What the hell do OUR political strategists actually DO all day long for the Party? Scratch their butts and pick their noses? If Obama and most mildly intelligent bloggers can figure this out, why can't the Democratic Party apparatchik figure out some way to counteract this? What's Tim Kaine doing????!!!
:argh:

[Marsala]

7. Just keep them out of power as long as we can

They will either return to sanity out of necessity like Cameron's Tories or wither away completely, since their base is literally dying off.

[elleng]

8. Dems studiously avoided Professor Lakoff

when he explained HOW to address crap, and how to present their/our points of view successfully. THAT was done for some internal 'political' reasons. Dems may just be suicidal. Heard someone discussing that today.

[amborin]

13. +1

[depakid]

19. The stubbornly avoid Dr. Westen's findings & advice, too

and end up having their issues coopted and their policies fail in the process.

From what I've observed, you're right about the self-destructive thing.

[glowing]

11. The problem is that many Democrats are beholden to the very corporations and

special interests that control the Republicans... So, even now, with a majority, we can't even pass a single-payer healthcare bill, institute strong financial regulations, increase social service spending, cut back military spending, increase education and public housing funding.. these are things Dems are supposed to stand up for.. however, these conservadems are a dangerous group..

[elleng]

15. And I think its not only so-called 'conservadems,'

but rather, MOST of them.

[glowing]

17. Many are also very out of touch with real America and its day to day struggles.

Campaigns are generally very expensive and attract wealthier candditates in the first place.. many being lawyers already when they decide to run for political office (we all know how much everyone loves laywers). Within both houses their are a majority of older, white men who are still making laws for a population of Americans who are very diverse and becoming increasingly more tolerant to those who live within its borders and actually embracing and enjoying the diversity that America has to offer its citizens. How many countries can you think of where you can get so many different types of food or enjoy so many different types of music or events? How many countries can you travel to and see so many different colors within a crowd?

For many young people, seeing the hatred and racist signs since Palin entered the race last fall and continued forward and gaining momentum espeically this past month is really eye opening. Civil Rights struggles are something we learned about during black history month in February. The blatant racist signs and disrespect towards President Obama and his family are disgusting.. The republican from SC shouting "You Lie" at the President like he did... Its just not the sort of America most of us understand very well.. Of course we still see situational racism.. but not a crazed white angry mob in D.C. wanting to lynch our President.

I think that our laws may begin to reflect American views better if we all work to elect people to represent us who actually represent us. When we can look at pictures of our House and Senate and see a rainbow of colors with a few more women in the mix, then I believe we might get the changes we'd all like to see.

[Puzzler]

4. The GOP and most of the RW will and always will be hypocrites.

The real blame must now fall on the weak Democrats whose knees tremble at the very thought of GOP criticism. Yes, those weak Democrats that cave in to the GOP demands.

[w4rma]

5. Blue dogs. (nt)

[Puzzler]

10. It's more than just the so-called Blue Dogs...

... at least we have some idea of where the Blue Dogs stand (as shitty as this may be). No, it's many of the rest of the Dems who seem to cave in and capitulate to the GOP for no good reason... aside from the fact that they have no backbone.

[elleng]

9. Among whom one must count a LARGE number.

[BlooInBloo]

12. Well duh. If Democrats clean up the republican mess, they would have to ADMIT there was a mess...

They would rather let the country go down the crapper than admit being wrong. They're Americans.

[amborin]

14. which is partly why Noam Chomsky sees no difference between dems & rethugs

for the most part, I agree with him

only in a few areas, such as environmental issues, do dem politicians seem to differ

[Liberal_Stalwart71]

16. What's really sad is that you have the DLCers and Blue Dogs joining the Republicans in the madness

Back when these so-called Democrats were backing Bush and voting with Republicans, they weren't concerned about rising deficits.

Now, we got a black Democratic president and all of the sudden these DemoCRAPS are scared of the Republicans because they serve conservative constituencies? They didn't stand up against Bush when he and the Repukes were spending like crazy. Now, they find the courage to stand up against Obama? Am I missing something here?

[Proud Liberal Dem]

20. That really irks me too

They're out there puffing their feathers and strutting around acting like "deficit hawks" NOW but they mostly, if not entirely, ignored Bush's profuse spending and didn't run around with their hair on fire demanding that Bush tell them how "conservative" initiatives were going to be paid for nor did they vote against a lot of his policies.
Another thing that gets me is that, no matter how bad things are economically, there ALWAYS seems to be enough money for our military. There's also enough money, amazingly, to pay all these for-profit defense contractors to do a lot of things that our military used to do- at a fraction of the cost. :puke:

[GivePeaceAchance]

18. Exactly, President Obama is going to call them out every turn and their old games won't work.

[Festivito]

21. And the so-called LW media, let's it look like the LW does what the RW did.

Just amazing.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

22. Yes

It's even more amazing that they actually GET AWAY WITH IT too! If you were here visiting from a different planet and listened to the Republicans and their corporate media-enablers for five seconds, you'd probably end up believing that Obama singlehandedly ran up the huge deficit we have now in the space of the 7 months he's been in office and that the "teabaggers" are just a bunch of patriotic "civic-minded" citizens whom are just "concerned" about our country. :eyes:
I'm glad at least Obama keeps trying to remind people (when he can work it in) that he inherited this mess from Bush but, unfortunately, we don't have a "counter-propaganda" operation of our own to try to fight against the RW lie machine.

[Festivito]

23. We're not on the take from a 1.5T$ denial system, nor the MIC$.

So, we don't have the think-tank money entrenched corruption manages, either from the insurance 1.5 trillion dollar denial system, nor the two-trillion dollar plus military industrial complex system.

Dems have their sellouts, but Republicans are completely sold out.