GOP strategist Matalin: Bush "inherited" 9/11 attacks from Clinton

[Louisiana1976]

No amount of spit and polish can clean the tarnish of the 9/11 attacks from the Bush legacy, but that didn't stop GOP strategist Mary Matalin from trying.

During a Sunday appearance on CNN, Matalin attempted to prop up an analogy between the first year of George W. Bush's presidency and that of President Barack Obama's. Raising the specter of rising unemployment, anchor John King wondered whether Republicans have the right to attack Democrats over the economy.

Matalin's response -- given sitting across a table from her husband, Democratic strategist James Carville -- was a little more than blindly partisan.

"I was there," she said. "We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history. And President Bush dealt with it. And within a year of his presidency at this comparable time, unemployment was at 5 percent. And we were creating jobs."


snip

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/gop-strategist-matalin-bush-inherited-911-attacks-clinton/

[JHB]

dupe

dupe

[JHB]

1. It's that V-Chip (for Villager) they have: easily rewritable memory.

JFK inherited the Bay of Pigs from from Ike, but took responsibility for it himself.
Clinton inherited the Waco raid from Bush, but didn't try to fob it off on Poppy.

But 9/11 happens after some 8 months after Dubya is sworn in, enough time to shift, money resources, and personnel to other priorities, REDUCING the level of vigilance from where Clinton left it, but it's still all Bill's fault.

And tracking back to the transcript, I see Carville simply let the falsehoods (both regarding 9/11 and the economy) pass without comment.


KING: The politics of the economy. Do the Republicans have that right? Deficits and maybe giving Congress too much control in writing this legislation? Is that a problem for this president? How has he been as a leader in his first year?

MATALIN: It's not just the deficits. It's the dud. It's incomprehensible. And it's the Bush fashion in perpetuity. Never gives a speech where he doesn't explicitly or implicitly look backwards.

I was there. We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history. And President Bush dealt with it. And within a year of his presidency at this comparable time, unemployment was at 5 percent. And we were creating jobs.

So there are two different ways to deal with this. He's choosing the way that Democrats always deal with it. But doing it at such a magnitude. The spending is unprecedented. The debt is unprecedented. And whatever the recession was that he inherited that was global did not -- the response is such an overkill that we will be settled with this forever.

CARVILLE: There's not a single analyst that looks at this that says Obama is infinitesimally responsible for what we have as the long-term debt in this country. And the other thing is this president is, if you believe the CBO, by the way, they're bending the cost curve on the health care thing. So what Governor Romney said just doesn't fit with the facts.

But his first real budget is going to come out I think it is in February. And let's see where that budget is because when they take office, they're still dealing with the predecessor's budget. So, and again, you know, I was reading something on the Peterson Institute, which is probably the most aggressive people on the deficit there is and they're not for pulling back the stimulus because that's a one- time expenditure. What they're going to have to do is something in these out years. I think these guys are going to put a budget out there that's going to be pretty reasonable. But you've got to give them some enormous credit here. They have got this economy in a lot better shape today than it was a year ago. And that's for a fact. And they've done it with all Democratic votes at every juncture. I think they can really take some pride in that.

Bush did not inherit a recession. Things were a bit wobbly in the post-Tech-Boom final months of Clinton, but they didn't actually go south until some months after Bush had been selected and sworn in.

[TexasObserver]

2. She's a professional liar who worked for Dick Cheney.

She speaks for ... oh, I don't know ... maybe SATAN!

[LeftishBrit]

3. Exactly how do you 'inherit' a terrorist attack?

[defendandprotect]

6. Well, I'd acknowledge that '93 was a practice run for MIHOP . .. .

[HughBeaumont]

4. "And we were creating jobs."

LIE-uh.

Longest stretch during 1999-2009 that American economy has failed to achieve the 150,000 jobs per month requirement: March 2001 through March 2004.

Average amount of jobs created in the American economy per month for the period January 2001 through December 2004: 8,312/month. That would be 141 thousand jobs short of requirement each MONTH. So much for the whole “tax cuts for the rich = jobs, jobs, jobs” argument.

[defendandprotect]

5. "We inherited a recession from President Clinton ..."

Good thread to show the very nature of the evil of lying Repugs --

especially Mary Matalin -- who's as good as Goebbels at it!

[KharmaTrain]

7. And The Corporate Media Toady...

...didn't dare to correct her assholiness. No surprise here, she knows she can strut onto any show, spew lies and no one dares to challenge her on it. Then they all head to a drinkie-drinkie party and laugh it off. But this should be expected...especially in light of all the attacks President Obama been getting in recent days and weeks. Damn thing is reading some of the posts here you'd think things were glorious and rosy prior to January 20th. Yet another reason to tune off the corporate media and their circle jerkers.