The writer is an asshat.

Barack Obama does not equal voting for the entire democratic party.

They are interchangeable, which seems like a foreign concept to a republican

Yes..."astonishing" is the word I would use here. ASTONISHING that Americans would blame the party that has controlled every branch of government for the better part of the last eight years as surpluses turned into massive deficits and regulations were consistently relaxed or outright revoked.

ASTONISHING!!!!!!

FTFA:

It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The only logical conclusion is that the GOP is so incompetent, it could not turn its policy positions into law despite having majorities in both Houses of Congress until January 2007. How else do you explain such consistent legislative failure?

/Unless you acknowledge that Republicans were against reining in Fannie and Freddie, too. But we don't talk about that.

This is bad news... for Obama.

astonishing in view of which man and which party has had the most to do with bringing on this crisis

This is sarcasm, right?

Please tell me yes. I can't tell when right-wing talking points are sarcasm or not anymore.

*pops popcorn*

Cog: *pops popcorn*

I'll pick up extra butter!

Do facts matter?

No. Just listen to McCain or Palin during any given debate / press interview. "But Obama voted against funding the troops!11!!!!"

I'd vote for the Republicans to fix Clinton's mess... but we already did that and they didn't f*cking do jack shiat.

Explain that one ? I have time, go ahead.

What is the big plan NOW to do what you failed to do for all that time before ?

the average person does not listen to the facts, just the gushy photo ops

Which party ran up a huge budget deficit to finance tax cuts?
Sucked up available credit by debt financing a private vendetta war?
First cratered the economy by letting 9/11 happen?

When Clinton left office there was a budget surplus, US troops mostly at home and the WTC standing. Don't pretend that the current administration's failures didn't make the credit risks into a crises.

Cubansaltyballs: Barack Obama does not equal voting for the entire democratic party.

Of course not.

TheOther: When Clinton left office there was a budget surplus

Your lack of knowledge is cute.

OregonVet: Your lack of knowledge is cute.

Then prove otherwise.

we're waiting.

Your time is up, but thanks for playing, OregonVet.

President Bill Clinton left office in 2001 with a federal budget surplus of $127 billion. President George Bush ran a deficit of $319 billion in 2005. So who deserves more credit for fighting red ink?

No question, says Treasury Secretary John Snow: It's his boss, Bush.

darkhorse23: we're waiting.

Take the week off without pay and get back to me.

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -- HLM

darkhorse23: Your time is up, but thanks for playing, OregonVet.

President Bill Clinton left office in 2001 with a federal budget surplus of $127 billion. President George Bush ran a deficit of $319 billion in 2005. So who deserves more credit for fighting red ink?

No question, says Treasury Secretary John Snow: It's his boss, Bush.

Don't blame him, he was using Republican accounting. You know, where taxing and spending == TEH EVIL, yet borrowing and spending == GOOD IDEA.

There's enough blame to be spread around for both parties on this issue.

OregonVet: Cubansaltyballs: Barack Obama does not equal voting for the entire democratic party.

Of course not.

But I thought the entire message of the article was that Dodd and Frank messed things up... and now you're gonna vote for Obama?

OregonVet: Take the week off without pay and get back to me.

Worst comeback evar.

I'd be more inclined to entertain the man's argument if he hadn't felt the need to use the term "liberal Democrat" four times in his diatribe, and to close with "...[Obama] has for years allied himself with a succession of people who have openly expressed their hatred of America."

Why do Obama's friends hate America?

floor9: Worst comeback evar.

Really? Did you get an unannounced unpaid vacation so Bill could make the budget look good? More than once? Did you have to choose between taking the government owned vehicle on an assignment or a paycheck for that assignment?

Cubansaltyballs: But I thought the entire message of the article was that Dodd and Frank messed things up... and now you're gonna vote for Obama?

Yes. Yes I am. Because both he and his running mate can pronounce the word "nuclear." Without having it spelled phonetically on the teleprompter.

OregonVet: TheOther: When Clinton left office there was a budget surplus

Your lack of knowledge is cute.

FYI: One need not defend the GOP to fap to Palin. Hatred of the McCain campaign's policies positions whims and variable flights of fancy can exist peacefully beside dreams of Palin in Dominatrix getup punishing one for one's liberal tendencies.

/in fact, I hear it's more exciting that way

So much for that conservative sense of accountability. Who needs it when you can just lay the blame anywhere?

mjsee: Yes. Yes I am. Because both he and his running mate can pronounce the word "nuclear." Without having it spelled phonetically on the teleprompter.

I wasn't asking a real question. I was trying to understand the premise of the article... that was as close I could get to it.

1) Dodd and Frank screwed up
2) Disaster
3) Vote for Obama? No sir. Not me. Look at the mess Frank got us into.

swahnhennessy: So much for that conservative sense of accountability.

It was reformed by the mavricks

OregonVet: Really? Did you get an unannounced unpaid vacation so Bill could make the budget look good? More than once? Did you have to choose between taking the government owned vehicle on an assignment or a paycheck for that assignment?

Gee, were there no private sector jobs available?

scalpod: KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5

LET ME ADD:

KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5
KEATING 5

OregonVet: floor9: Worst comeback evar.

Really? Did you get an unannounced unpaid vacation so Bill could make the budget look good? More than once? Did you have to choose between taking the government owned vehicle on an assignment or a paycheck for that assignment?

So Clinton was making 450 billion a week?

Wow, you suck even worse than I gave you credit for.

It's amazing.. The article professes to know the facts, yet presents almost none to back up what it's saying..

Shrew2u: Gee, were there no private sector jobs available?

Absolutely. And I did go private for those reasons.

Anybody see that post on FiveThirtyEight.org about how RCP is now also skewing their selection of polls to try to make things look better for McCain? It was pretty interesting.

Link (new window)

I just. . . What the fark? Where does this shiat come from? They are willing to wholesale ignore the WHOLE of reality in order to make their party look better.

I better not EVER hear a Republican compare Bush or any recent Republican to Truman. "The buck" no longer stops anywhere NEAR the White House, as far as the Republicans are concerned. It stops with the Democrats, even when they didn't have a majority and didn't fillibuster but someone still killed a bill. Or it stops in the future. Farking lying sacks of shiat.

Cubansaltyballs: The writer is an asshat.

Barack Obama does not equal voting for the entire democratic party.

They are interchangeable, which seems like a foreign concept to a republican

You could say they are "fungible".

And is Real Clear Politics a Republican site? I think it's been pretty well established that both parties were at fault here.

Shrew2u: FTFA:

It was Senator Dodd, Congressman Frank and other liberal Democrats who for years refused requests from the Bush administration to set up an agency to regulate Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The only logical conclusion is that the GOP is so incompetent, it could not turn its policy positions into law despite having majorities in both Houses of Congress until January 2007. How else do you explain such consistent legislative failure?

/Unless you acknowledge that Republicans were against reining in Fannie and Freddie, too. But we don't talk about that.

He doesn't seem to realize that Freddie and Fannie aren't the real problem, it's the CDS's that caused all this. If they had started regulating them like insurance then we would have avoided a lot of this. And the blame there lies on the asshat that attached it to a massive bill that was setting the fiscal budget for 2001.

Sorry folks, but the congress of 98-2006 are to blame.

4th Yorkshireman of the Apocalypse: You could say they are "fungible".

And is Real Clear Politics a Republican site? I think it's been pretty well established that both parties were at fault here.

I'm not sure the leanings of the site. But the writer is definitely a republican.

The premise of the article is

Dodd = bad
Frank = bad
Obama = Dodd * Frank = bad^2

4th Yorkshireman of the Apocalypse: And is Real Clear Politics a Republican site? I think it's been pretty well established that both parties were at fault here.

Of course it isn't. Just like FoxNews is in no way affiliated with the Republican Party.

OregonVet: floor9: Worst comeback evar.

Really? Did you get an unannounced unpaid vacation so Bill could make the budget look good? More than once? Did you have to choose between taking the government owned vehicle on an assignment or a paycheck for that assignment?

Seems to me that there was a Republican Congress that was involved in that little 'government shutdown' fiasco. And I seem to remember them being the ones pushing for that little stunt to try and force the issue.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

OregonVet: Shrew2u: Gee, were there no private sector jobs available?

Absolutely. And I did go private for those reasons.

I got a one-week layoff in 2005 from my state job for the same reason when my state's government couldn't get their budget together.

Do you know who was governor? Tim Pawlenty, McCain's campaign chair and almost-running mate.

Two can play that game.

Yeah, subby, the Repugs who have spent the last 20 years fellating Reagan's ghost have nothing to do with this mess.

Phil Gramm -- McCain's economic chief until recently -- sponsored the legislation that revoked Depression-era checks on the banking system, leading to the current house of cards clusterfark.

I'm not saying the Dems are any better; after all, Clinton was our best-ever GOP president. But seriously, give me a break.

Silly partisans. theyre all the same.

TheOther: Which party ran up a huge budget deficit to finance tax cuts?

Technically the tax cuts cost us very little, tax revenues quickly rose to levels above those brought in during Clinton.... BUT government expenditures went through the roof. It took us 6 years to go from 5-6 trillion dollar deficit. Under Bush we added a trillion dollars every single year.

swahnhennessy: So much for that conservative sense of accountability. Who needs it when you can just lay the blame anywhere on liberals?


/Whatever the hell that means.

This is another article that's waving the red herring of Freddie and Fannie -- as if that quasi institution was the Genesis of this mess. Starting with Carter this nation decided to try Classical Liberalism again. . . . as if the Great Depression wasn't enough of reason to drop that shiat once and for all.

Deregulation was accelerated under *every* administration since then. That's what's causing this mess. Neo-Liberals.

Yes, liberals caused this. But they're buttery Classical Liberals of the Republican Party that have championed Rationalized Selfness since their demigod Reagan.

OregonVet: floor9: Worst comeback evar.

Really? Did you get an unannounced unpaid vacation so Bill could make the budget look good? More than once? Did you have to choose between taking the government owned vehicle on an assignment or a paycheck for that assignment?

So, what you're telling me is that, under Clinton, the government was run like a business with a hard ass boss doing everything to lower costs and increase profits?

4th Yorkshireman of the Apocalypse: And is Real Clear Politics a Republican site? I think it's been pretty well established that both parties were at fault here.

Yes, RCP is VERY Republican. They might have made the occasional swipe at the Republicans, but they are as clearly biased as Huffington Post and Kos.

Polling aggregate isn't bad, although Nate of Fivethrityeight.com has caught them in some questionable picking of polls.

Democrats? Oh, Really, Submitter?

Back in 2000, when Hank Paulson was CEO of Goldman Sachs, he testified in front of the Security and Exchange Commission. Among other things, he lobbied the SEC to enact a "change to self-regulation" for Wall Street. He also urged them to change the "net capital rule" which governed the amount of leverage investment banks could use. The net capital rule was indeed changed in 2004, and is now blamed for the investment banks' collapse.

The man who we are all looking to in order to help guide us out of this hole is one of the prime architects of this hole.