23 Comments Add your own

• 1. John Foust  |  September 10th, 2012 at 10:40 am

  

  Is this your way of saying that your conservative friends don’t want Rmoney to win?

• 2. Elliot  |  September 10th, 2012 at 10:43 am

  

  Well, they didn’t want him to be the nominee, because they thought he was too much of a moderate, but I think they’re willing to forgive and forget at this point. ;)

• 3. jimspice  |  September 10th, 2012 at 12:03 pm

  

  Your friends are basically correct. Presidents’ power to influence the economy is greatly exaggerated. The Fed has some pull, but that’s officially out of the president’s hands.

• 4. John Foust  |  September 10th, 2012 at 2:46 pm

  

  Yeah. It seemed like there was a great deal of “forgetting” at the Republican convention.

• 5. Roland Melnick  |  September 10th, 2012 at 6:35 pm

  

  “Presidents’ power to influence the economy is greatly exaggerated.”

  The only reason you’re willing to say that now is there is a (D) in the White House. Problem is…Obama heaped massive amounts of blame on Bush for laying such an economic mess at his feet in January 2009. If Obama wants to live (politically) by that sword, he may find himself dying (politically) by it.

• 6. John Foust  |  September 10th, 2012 at 10:41 pm

  

  Those blinders must be feeling tight, Roland. If McCain had won, you think he wouldn’t have blamed Bush for what he inherited?

• 7. jimspice  |  September 10th, 2012 at 10:58 pm

  

  Nope RoMe, I say it because it’s true. And I DID say it about Bush, and Walker as well. The only reason I think it’s fair game to rub the job losses in Walker’s nose is that he CLAIMED he could deliver. He was just making a gamble and lost and deserves to eat, ahem, crow.

• 8. Roland Melnick  |  September 10th, 2012 at 11:24 pm

  

  Either a President can effect the economy or he can’t. If it’s within a President’s scope to wreck the economy, as many claim Bush did, then a President certainly has the ability to push the needle the other way. Yet, under Obama, we have record levels of deficit spending and national debt, record numbers of people on food stamps, record numbers of people out of the workforce and a higher unemployment rate now than when Obama took office. With that, the best “Obama For America” can muster is “Blame Bush”…again…as if this were 2008, not 2012.

  “Blinders”?….I’m not the guy making excuses for Obama’s failures. Who wastes time pondering (or discussing) what McCain would have said? It’s utterly inconsequential, uninteresting and pointless, unless your aim is to divert from the uncomfortable reality…which sounds like classic John Foust.

• 9. Roland Melnick  |  September 10th, 2012 at 11:27 pm

  

  “The only reason I think it’s fair game to rub the job losses in Walker’s nose is that he CLAIMED he could deliver.”

  And Obama didn’t promise to deliver things like cuts to the deficit and sub-8% unemployment? Feel free to rub Obama’s nose in that.

• 10. John Foust  |  September 11th, 2012 at 5:29 am

  

  RoMe, you were the one who thought it was improper of Obama to “heaped massive amounts of blame on Bush”. You think he was wrong to do that? Your magic needle is massless and has no momentum? Obama should’ve been able to magically push the needle as to avoid debt, any increase in the use of food stamps, and unemployment?

  Let me guess, you like the Rmoney/Ryan/Palin plan: lower taxes for the most wealthy, and poor people should get their food by hunting in the woods. Because, after all, when you move your millions offshore to avoid more taxes, it moves the magic needle, right?

• 11. jimspice  |  September 11th, 2012 at 7:59 am

  

  And record corporate profits and a near-record stock market. Yikes. That trickle down crap really is just that — crap.

• 12. John Foust  |  September 11th, 2012 at 9:30 am

  

  Has Rmoney/Ryan ever announced how they’d be different from Bush?

• 13. Roland Melnick  |  September 11th, 2012 at 11:58 am

  

  “You were the one who thought it was improper of Obama…”

  Actually, I didn’t lay a judgment on his “blame Bush” strategy. That would be you putting words in my mouth.

  Obama established the grounds on which to judge Bush but now wants to weasel out of the same standard.

• 14. John Foust  |  September 11th, 2012 at 5:08 pm

  

  So if Obama wasn’t wrong to point his finger at Bush at the start of his first term, and these large problems have not yet run their course, you think Obama’s to blame for not fixing what Bush messed up, and therefore we should elect Rmoney? As I like to say, “follow the logic.”

• 15. Roland Melnick  |  September 12th, 2012 at 8:00 pm

  

  “So if Obama wasn’t wrong to point his finger at Bush at the start of his first term…”

  You try too hard to misquote me…as usual. I didn’t say he was right or wrong. I merely pointed out the fact that Obama did point his finger at Bush.

  Did he not do that?

  Perhaps you haven’t seen the 689 speeches he’s delivered where he did just that. But I digress…

  I suspect it is you who believes Obama should not have wagged the finger so prolifically for everytime he does so, he’s admitting it is the Office of the President that bears the ultimate responsiblity for the economic condition of the country.

  It makes the job of Democrat spinmeisters all the more challenging having to pull a Jedi mind trick at the national level. Even the DebWaSchultzs of the world know no matter how much you tell the unemployed they’re better off now compared to 4 years ago, they probably aren’t gonna buy it.

  It leads to painfully desperate memes like “War on Women.”

• 16. Roland Melnick  |  September 12th, 2012 at 8:15 pm

  

  spicyjim, JoFo just sent me a message…apparently every comment now requires sources and specific references to facts. Please beef up comment #11.

• 17. John Foust  |  September 12th, 2012 at 10:20 pm

  

  I think it’s far more interesting to hear what Roland believes. Do you think any President has the magical powers necessary to repair what Bush left, and that it’s good to have Presidents who exercise those sorts of magical powers over the market?

  After all, it’s a bit disingenuous to say Obama’s in the wrong for not doing what you think is wrong. (Unless of course you’re just playing this GOP “stop hitting yourself” game.)

  If Bush and the GOP had the power to lead the USA into war and this harmed our economy, it does not necessarily follow that a subsequent President has the power to undo it in less than one full term.

• 18. Roland Melnick  |  September 12th, 2012 at 10:44 pm

  

  OK, but isn’t it hypocritical to wrongly accuse me of saying something I didn’t say in defense of something Romney didn’t not do….LOL…really John, you’re twisting yourself in knots trying to twist my words.

  Presidents have the power to wreck but not to fix? Is that Obama’s new message? “Fix the economy? Don’t look to me.” That’s a real winner.

  It’s also telling that you find what I say more interesting than what your President says.

  So Bush’s war spending killed the economy, but Obama taking 232 years of accumulated debt and increasing it by 50-60% in just 4 years is a good thing?

• 19. John Foust  |  September 13th, 2012 at 12:21 am

  

  Go ahead, Roland. Tell me what you think.

• 20. Roland Melnick  |  September 13th, 2012 at 11:46 am

  

  About what?

• 21. John Foust  |  September 13th, 2012 at 11:53 am

  

  “Do you think any President has the magical powers necessary to repair what Bush left, and that it’s good to have Presidents who exercise those sorts of magical powers over the market?”

• 22. Roland Melnick  |  September 13th, 2012 at 12:22 pm

  

  It takes “magical” powers to improve the economy?

• 23. John Foust  |  September 13th, 2012 at 12:54 pm

  

  No, only ROLAND MELNICK powers.

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