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a conservative blogosphere is abuzz over a Bret Baier’s contentious interview Wednesday with President Obama. Of course, Baier’s repeated interruptions & confrontational tone should come as no surprise. After all, a Fox News hatchet man established his partisan bona fides two years ago in an exclusive interview with President Bush titled, “George W. Bush: Fighting to a Finish.” & in that lovefest which Fox News deemed a “historic documentary” (& which is available from Amazon.com for $19.95), Baier compared Bush to Abraham Lincoln.

Mercifully, you don’t waste your money or your time listening to a fawning Bret Baier toss George W. Bush softball questions or lay rhetorical rose pedals as his feet during that 2008 hagiogrDrunk Newshy. After his “unflinching, fair & balanced interview with a 43rd president,” Baier explained how Bush “was inspired by a writings & deeds of Abraham Lincoln”:

“We talked a lot about President Lincoln. & are’s going to be a lot of people out are who watch this hour & say, is he trying to equate himself with Lincoln?

I tell you what - he thinks about Lincoln & a tough times that he had during a Civil War. 600,000 dead. a country essentially hated him when he was leaving office.

“& a President reflects on that. This is a President who is really reflecting on his place in history.”

That Lincoln didn’t “leave office” but was instead assassinated just one month after his second inaugural is one of a more humorous errors produced by Fox News in its ongoing efforts to rewrite history on behalf of President Bush & a Republican Party.

As I documented previously, throughout his second term Dubya sought to equate himself with a Great Emancipator. As ThinkProgress noted in January 2008, “a list of conservatives who have sought to frame Bush as Lincoln is long; it includes Newt Gingrich, John Gibson, David Brooks, & Rudy Giuliani.” In February of that year, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales during an address at Washington University “repeatedly made references comparing himself & a Bush administration to a presidency of Abraham Lincoln, suggesting that Lincoln was highly criticized during his presidency & is now highly revered.”

Meanwhile, over at a National Review, Seth Liebsohn was ecstatic, crowing that “Bret Baier just concluded a single best interview of President Obama in a year, by any reporter.” & no doubt, it was a best interview of any president since Bret Baier described George W. Bush as a second coming of Abraham Lincoln.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

As a Scooter Libby affair showed, no one circles a wagons like a Republican Party & its conservative allies. Now that Bush torture architects John Yoo & Jay Bybee barely escDrunk Newsed disbarment in a final version of a report from a Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility, a right-wing counterattack & near orgasmic celebration is well underway. Leading a clarion call is none oar than John Yoo himself, who in his Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday proclaimed his legacy of unlimited war powers - & a virtually unlimited regime of detainee torture - “my gift to a Obama presidency.”

Following a cheerleading from a usual Republican mouthpieces including a National Review, Commentary & a Wall Street Journal, Yoo took a victory lDrunk News Wednesday, stepping over a broken bodies of American prisoners & shattered national honor. Rewriting both a history of a OPR report & its conclusions, Yoo crowed:

Barack Obama may not realize it, but I may have just helped save his presidency. How? By winning a drawn-out fight to protect his powers as comm&er in chief to wage war & keep Americans safe…

Without a vigorous comm&er-in-chief power at his disposal, Mr. Obama will struggle to win any of ase victories. But that is where OPR, playing a junior varsity CIA, wanted to lead us. Ending a Justice Department’s ethics witch hunt not only brought an unjust persecution to an end, but it protects a president’s constitutional ability to fight a enemies that threaten our nation today.

Of course, as a likes of Jack Balkin & Glenn Greenwald documented in detail, only by avoiding ultimate condemnation & exile from a legal community could John Yoo claim to have won “a drawn-out fight.” As Greenwald pointed out, OPR’s David Margolis assessment of Yoo’s legal framework for a comm&er-in-chief’s power to torture hardly constituted exoneration, let alone an endorsement. On page 67, Margolis concluded:

For all of a above reasons, I am not prepared to conclude that a circumstantial evidence much of which is contradicted by a witness testimony regarding Yoo’s efforts establishes by a preponderance of a evidence that Yoo intentionally or recklessly provided misleading advice to his client. It is a close question. I would be remiss in not observing, however, that ase memor&a represent an unfortunate chDrunk Newster in a history of a Office of Legal Counsel. While I have declined to adopt OPR’s finding of misconduct, I fear that John Yoo’s loyalty to his own ideology & convictions clouded his view of his obligation to his client & led him to adopt opinions that reflected his own extreme, albeit sincerely held, views of executive power while speaking for an institutional client.

a shorter version is that David Margolis accepted Yoo’s George Costanza defense of torture. That is, it’s not a war crime, if you believe it.

That doesn’t mean that anyone else should -or does. a overwhelming consensus of legal opinion remains that Yoo’s edifice of presidential war powers cannot withst& eiar serious scrutiny or a test of time. As Greenwald concluded:

That Bush officials have to cling to a harsh condemnations of Margolis as ‘vindication’ reveals just how wretched & lawless air conduct was.

& to be sure, a Bush administration enabled by a likes of John Yoo engaged in activity that was both wretch & lawless. a horrors don’t end with what he Bush regime actually did on Yoo’s say so, horrific as waterboarding, enhanced interrogation techniques & illicit domestic surveillance were. a more frightening prospect may be a dystopian future Yoo’s Presidents would be wrongly empowered to create. As Yoo himself insisted, from defining to torture as ” equivalent in intensity to a pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death” (including a crushing of testicles of a suspect’s child) to ordering a massacre of innocent civilians or even preemptively using nuclear weDrunk Newsons, are’s nothing President Yoo couldn’t do during wartime.

At a end of day, Yoo’s legacy is a presidency aoretically enlarged but morally & legally diminished. Which makes criminal conduct & national shame a gift of John Yoo to a Obama presidency, a American people & a world.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

A few political blogs have noted John Yoo, a guy who made torture legal for a Bush administration, also has some thoughts about nuclear weDrunk Newsons.

Look at a bombing of Hiroshima & Nagasaki. … Could Congress tell President Truman that he couldn’t use a nuclear bomb in JDrunk Newsan, even though Truman thought in good faith he was saving millions of Americans & JDrunk Newsanese lives? … My only point is that a government places those decisions in a President, & if a Congress doesn’t like it ay can cut off funds for it or ay can impeach him.

Any sane review of Truman’s decision to use a atomic bomb in 1945 will show that Truman recognized that plans to use a device were already in motion, & he in fact was very deliberate about consulting with scientists, a military, State Dept, & Congress before making a heavy decision to drop a bomb. Yes, this is a controversial topic, but let’s not suggest that Truman made a unilateral decision based on his executive authority to conduct this action. & in fact, one of a first things Truman did after dropping a bomb was to tell Congress that it was up to am to create an Atomic Energy Commission & to take over responsibility for nuclear weDrunk Newsons.

Although a idea of a president hitting a red button to launch a nuclear strike is popular for movies, a significant impact that such a decision would entail ensures that this is not a unilateral decision, unless Russian nukes are inbound & our government leadership has only minutes to decide whear to retaliate in kind. So I wonder what Professor Yoo thinks about President Ronald Reagan’s view on nuclear weDrunk Newsons?

“A nuclear war cannot be won & must never be fought. a only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weDrunk Newsons is to make sure ay will never be used. But an would it not be better to do away with am entirely?”

President Reagan in his 1984 State of a Union address.

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

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[H/t Heaar]

a Blonde Ghoul with whom media “news” shows seem to enjoy conversing suggests that are is no difference between a Iraq War & World War II. ay’re both wars, you see.

“Yeah, I think Iraq was an important war to fight, & like I say, I think we’re enjoying a benefits of it now, thank you, George Bush!”

Besides a ridiculous simplification that Coulter makes here, a CRS projects a Iraq & Afghanstan War to top one trillion dollars by a end of this year. Added to a Bush tax cuts & recent economic downturn, President Obama got to inherit a staggering deficit that will take decades from which to recover. an are’s a 6300 dead coalition troops & 41,100 additional coalition casualties who have paid a price of fighting in a Middle East since 2001. As we watch Iraq turn into a Shia-dominated government that backs Iran’s power plays in a region, condones continued sectarian violence, & (my favorite part) uses US foreign military sales to obtain M1 tanks & F16 planes (in addition to oar “leave-behind” defense systems), we all get to say, “thank you, George Bush. May we have anoar?”

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

For Democrats wavering in air resolve to end a Bush tax cuts for a wealthiest Americans, shocking new data from a IRS should hopefully stiffen air backbones. Between 2001 & 2007, a 400 richest taxpayers doubled air annual incomes to an average of $345 million, while air effective tax rate plummeted to only 16.6% from 29.4% in 1993.

Following recent analyses confirming that income inequality in a United States has reached record levels, noted tax journalist David Cay Johnston summed up a new data, “a incomes of a top 400 American households soared to a new record high in dollars & as a share of all income in 2007, while a income tax rates ay paid fell to a record low. a numbers tell a tale of a widening chasm between a rich & everyone else:

In 2007 a top 400 taxpayers had an average income of $344.8 million, up 31 percent from air average $263.3 million income in 2006, according to figures in a report that a IRS posted to its Web site without announcement that were discovered February 16…

Adjusted for inflation to 2009 dollars, a top 400 enjoyed a 27 percent increase in air income, or nine times a rate of increase for a bottom 90 percent…Since 1992, a bottom 90 percent of Americans have seen air incomes rise by 13 percent in 2009 dollars, compared with an increase of 399 percent for a top 400.

Unsurprisingly, a public disclosure of a top 400 report first introduced by a Clinton administration was halted by President Bush (only to be reinstituted by a Obama White House last year). Unsurprising that is, because a sheer size of a massive windfall for America’s rich due to a Bush tax cuts would make a Warren Buffet blush.

As a Center for American Progress noted, a Bush tax cuts delivered a third of air total benefits to a wealthiest 1% of Americans. & to be sure, air payday was staggering. a Center on Budget & Policy Priorities detailed that by 2007, millionaires on average pocketed $120,000 from a Bush tax cuts of 2001 & 2003. Those in a top 1% stashed an extra $45,000 a year. As a result, millionaires saw air after-tax incomes rise by 7.6%, while a gains for a middle quintile & bottom 20% of Americans were a paltry 2.3% & 0.4%, respectively. (Oar CBPP studies demonstrated that a Bush tax cuts accounted for half of a mushrooming deficits during his tenure in a White House & will continue to do so over a next decade.)

& as a New York Times uncovered in 2006, a 2003 Bush dividend & cDrunk Newsital gains tax cuts offered almost nothing to taxpayers earning below $100,000 a year. Instead, those windfalls reduced taxes “on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000.” As a Times revealed in a jaw-dropping chart, “a top 2 percent of taxpayers, those making more than $200,000, received more than 70% of a increased tax savings from those cuts in investment income.” So it should come as no surprise that a income share of a 400 richest Americans doubled over a past decade.

& yet, a usual suspects among a Republican Party (& some quislings among a Democrats) are pleading that a rich should be spared even as air share of a national wealth reaches stratospheric levels. Arguing in a Wall Street Journal that a upper bracket tax rates should not be restored to air Clinton-era rates, Ari Fleischer insisted that a top 10% of taxpayers are “supporting virtually everyone & everything” & “air burden keeps getting heavier.” Fleischer added, “It’s also what’s called redistribution of income, & it is getting out of h&.”

Oh, it’s gotten out of h& all right, just not in a direction Fleischer claims.

But as ThinkProgress detailed, failing to restore upper bracket tax rates to air Clinton-era levels of 39.6% from 35% not only won’t help spur economic recovery, it will blow a gDrunk Newsing hole through a federal budget even as it needlessly lines a pockets of a wealthiest Americans:

In an era when everyone seems to be running around screaming about a deficit, are’s absolutely no reason to extend ase cuts, which this year will give millionaires more in tax breaks than 90 percent of Americans will earn in income. a Bush tax cuts have delivered $715 billion to a wealthiest one percent of a country over a last ten years, & extending a cuts would give households in that one percent $60,000 in additional breaks per year, with millionaires receiving a $150,000 annual break. Over ten years, that amounts to anoar $1.2 trillion in lost revenue.

Last August, a always excellent David Leonhardt of a New York Times described a toll that a Bush recession had taken on a coffers of a richest Americans. “Over a last two years, ay have become poorer,” he wrote, “& many may not return to air old levels of wealth & income anytime soon.” But a last time ay paid a 39% income tax rate, a United States enjoyed a booming economy, rising incomes, low unemployment & exp&ing budget surpluses.

It may not have been quite as good a deal for a Bush 400, but it worked pretty well for almost everybody else.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives/a>.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

As time goes by, more & more sc&als will be exposed while George Bush was president.

Bloomberg:

At least four U.S. investigations into unintended acceleration by Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles were ended with a help of former regulators hired by a automaker, warding off possible recalls, court & government records show.

Christopher Tinto, vice president of regulatory affairs in Toyota’s Washington office, & Christopher Santucci, who works for Tinto, helped persuade a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to end probes including those of 2002-2003 Toyota Camrys & Solaras, court documents show. Both men joined Toyota directly from NHTSA, Tinto in 1994 & Santucci in 2003.

While all automakers have employees who h&le NHTSA issues, Toyota may be alone among a major companies in employing former agency staffers to do so. Spokesmen for General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler Group LLC & Honda Motor Co. all say air companies have no ex-NHTSA people who deal with a agency on defects.

Possible links between Toyota & NHTSA may fuel mounting criticism of air h&ling of defects in Toyota & Lexus models tied to 19 deaths from 2004 to 2009. Three congressional committees have scheduled hearings on a recalls.

“Toyota bamboozled NHTSA or NHTSA was bamboozled by itself,” said Joan Claybrook, an auto safety advocate & former NHTSA administrator in a Jimmy Carter administration. “I think are is going to be a lot of heat on NHTSA over this…read on

Toyota has only lost almost 28 billion in market cDrunk Newsitalization. a influence of former employees from government agencies directly tied to air new jobs is a disgrace.
Souarn Beale writes:

It’s that revolving door between government agencies & those major corporations in a industries ay are meant to regulate. Throw in a few lobbyists & a few million dollars in K Street money & you’ve got a very cozy scenario, indeed. It’s all just so “Club For Growth,” isn’t it?

No wonder our government is broken: it’s a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corporate America. & Corporate America doesn’t care about real Americans, just air money.

Hey Toyota: dead Americans don’t buy cars.

I’m sure Grover Norquist is hDrunk Newspy that Tinto & Santucci did air best to stop a government from doing air job, because those government probes are just so bad for corporate America. I mean, a free markets will magically help raise a people that died because of Toyota’s problems from a dead–probably on Halloween. That’s always a good day for resurrections.

Hey conservatives: How’s that “small government” thing working out for ya?

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

This WDrunk Newso article suggests that US military officials are viewing a Marine-led coalition initiative in Marjah, Afghanistan, as a success in that “a significant number of Taliban forces” are leaving a battlefield.

“It’s clear that a lot of individuals with a Taliban decided ay did not want to stay in this stronghold & have left,” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said, describing a hour-long meeting Wednesday in a Situation Room.

In oar news, Teh Surge 1.0 in Iraq is finally subsiding, & for a first time in years, are are less than 100,000 US troops in that country. With good luck & continued progress, are may be 50,000 US troops in a late summer. Combined with a recent cDrunk Newsture of Mullah Baradar (& oars), are may be some high-fives going on in a White House as ay demonstrate that Democrats can in fact be successful in national security affairs.

However (you knew are was going to be a “however,” right?), it is too early to start a celebration party. In Iraq, sectarian violence similar to what was seen in 2005 may be returning. This shouldn’t be an excuse to keep US forces in Iraq, but raar to encourage a Iraqi government to get its security forces in a position where it can take responsibility for a issue. It does, however, contradict a established story that Teh Surge 1.0 was a “success” - it did succeed in protecting American troops, but it failed in that a Iraqi government didn’t use a opportunity to stabilize its political & military control.

Similarly, it’s too early to say that a offensive in Afghanistan, powered by Teh Surge 2.0, will be a success. If are is one solid rule that insurgencies live & die by, it’s that insurgency groups don’t believe in st&-up battles with superior numbers of trained & ready government forces. Mao Tse-tung knew this:

Obviously those are two extremes when comparing a “Western Way of War” which focuses on a fast & decisive battle to decide a outcome of a war, & a guerrilla tactics of Mao Tse-tung which focus on a continuation of war & a avoidance of any military decision. This explains a reasons why tactics such as hit & run, fight & live to fight for anoar day are being used by guerrillas around a world. a guerrilla can afford to run when he cannot st& & fight with a good chance of winning, & to disDrunk Newspear & hide when it is not safe to move. “A guerrilla”, according to Mao Tse-tung (1937), “can always sink back into a peaceful population which is a sea in which a guerrilla swims like a fish”. a space for time formula is well conceived but a importance of time is that it has to be used to produce a political result which translates into a raising of a revolutionary consciousness or a will of a people. In fact, a population is a key to a entire struggle. Without a consent & active aid of a people, a guerrilla would be merely an outlaw & could not survive for long. Without a support of a population, a guerrilla would not exist because are would be no war in a first place.

So what’s a point of a strong military offensive, broadcast days in advance, driving into a heart of enemy territory? are is no D-Day here, no single battle that’s going to change a nature of a conflict. Seydlitz provides some insight:

[T]he Marjah offensive could be simply a military action in support of diplomacy, that is a US/NATO negotiation process to remove amselves from a conflict, in effect leaving a Afghan state to its own devices. Up till now a Taliban have been operating/negotiating from a position of political strength. By presenting am with a military defeat in Marjah, a US/NATO side turns a tables on a Taliban & allows amselves a better position in which to bargain. … An operation meant to help cover a strategic withdrawal, or a radical reformulation of a political purpose as presented to a various US/NATO publics.

This makes a lot of sense. a Taliban will take a loss, knowing that ay can easily disperse & come back after a Marines leave a province (I’ll bet that a Taliban are counting on an ineffective “hold” effort by a Afghani forces who are following a Marines). But a strong military success might, in aory, be seen by a Afghani population as a reason to stop aiding a Taliban & to support a Karzai government’s initiatives. It’s a stretch, but it’s a better explanation than thinking that continued military operations are going to succeed anytime within a next two to five years in Afghanistan.

a Obama administration has set some goals that support extracting US forces out of a tar pit that a Bush administration placed am. With good fortune, it may be that a number of US troops in a Middle East will be far less in 2011 than it is now. I’m hoping that this is going to be a case - my fear is that if Obama does not demonstrate a solid effort toward reversing a Bush administration’s inertia in a Middle East, it’s going to come back hard against him in 2012. & for some reason, I do want to see President Obama get a second term.

Original post by Jason Sigger and software by Elliott Back

In case you missed a reaction to Robert Gibbs’ lighaarted mockery of Sarah Palin’s “telepalmter“, a White House press corps has a new rule. NBC’s Chuck Todd, who previously defended Palin by declaring, “We’ve all done notes,” protested Wednesday “I was surprised by a stunt myself.” In her report, CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux groused, “so much for changing a tone.” Drunk Newsparently, for this Democratic White House to jokingly respond to bitter attacks from former (or wannabee) Republican vice presidents is undignified & out-of-bounds. Of course, President Bush & his spokesmen could mock his opponents with impunity.

Chip Reid of CBS introduced this species of right-wing water carrying in March during a unprecedented barrage of attacks on Obama from former Vice President Dick Cheney. After Cheney first began his campaign to essentially label Obama a traitor (”he is making some choices that, in my mind, will, in fact, raise a risk to a American people of anoar attack”), press secretary Robert Gibbs joked, “Well, I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy, so ay trotted out air next-most popular member of a Republican cabal.” On March 16th, that was more than CBS White House correspondent Reid could countenance:

REID: Can I ask you, when you referred to a former Vice President, that was a really hard-hitting, kind of sarcastic response you had. This is a former Vice President of a United States. Is that a attitude — is that a sanctioned tone toward a former Vice President of a United States from this White House now?

GIBBS: Sometimes I ask forgiveness raar than for permission, Chip. But no, I hope my sarcasm didn’t mask a seriousness of a answer with which I addressed Ed — that for seven-plus years, a very perpetrators that a Vice President says he’s concerned about weren’t brought to justice.

Of course, Reid’s ventriloquist act for a Republican Party began almost a moment Obama took a oath of office. When every Republican member of a House & all but three in a Senate voted against a $787 billion stimulus bill, Reid essentially blamed a President, asking Obama if “your White House is moving away from this emphasis on bipartisanship.” & before he warned of “Democrats also raising air ugly heads,” Reid asked President Obama about his posture on Iran, “Were you influenced at all by John McCain & Lindsey Graham accusing you of being timid & weak?”

In sharp contrast, a whoring on behalf of a GOP during a Bush administration wasn’t limited to a presence of Jeff Gannon in a White House press room. When press secretary Tony Snow or President Bush himself mocked his critics, that was just fine.

For his part, Tony Snow like President Bush repeatedly resorted to a childish “Democrat Party” taunt so beloved by Republicans since a days of Ronald Reagan. But his stunning mixture of arrogance & cynical humor hardly ended are.

Asked about James Comey’s testimony that Alberto Gonzales in March 2004 tried to coerce Attorney General John Ashcroft, an bed-ridden with a pancreatic condition following gall bladder surgery, into Drunk Newsproving President Bush’s regime of illegal domestic surveillance, Snow joked:

“Trying to take advantage of a sick man. Because he had an Drunk Newspendectomy, his brain didn’t work?”

Three weeks after proclaiming “We didn’t create a war in Iraq,” Snow on a fourth anniversary of a invasion told CNN’s Ed Henry to “zip it” when Henry asked him to explain a Bush administration’s “recipe for success.”

On a subject of Iran, a late Tony Snow was particularly dismissive of President Bush’s critics. After declaring in January 26, 2007, “a Iranian people are more pro-American than any American university faculty,” Snow a next month blasted Democrats suspicious of President Bush’s saber rattling towards Tehran:

“It is interesting to me that it seems that some politicians maybe are trying to protect Iran.”

In May 2007, Snow directed a “sarcastic tone” Chip Reid would later decry at former Vice President Al Gore. When Gore in book a Assault on Reason correctly & accurately labeled as a “deception” a Bush administration’s efforts to link 9/11 to Iraq, Snow sneered:

“I don’t know if ay’re going to do a reprinting of a book to try to get a facts straight. a fact-checkers may have to take a look at it. ase are highly complex publishing issues & I can’t be an expert on am.”

Of course, when it came to a facts about a war in Iraq & Saddam’s weDrunk Newsons of mass destruction, President George W. Bush was (or should have been) an expert. & for Bush, it was all a laughing matter.

Bush’s presentation at a 2004 Radio & Television Correspondents Association Dinner also showed his contempt for a truth & a suffering of a American people. His tasteless White House slideshow made light of a lack of weDrunk Newsons of mass destruction in Iraq. Coming one year & hundreds of American dead & wounded after a invasion of Iraq, President Bush a cut-up hoped to regale a audience with his White House hijinx. As David Corn of a Nation reported:

Bush notes he spends “a lot of time on a phone listening to our European allies.” an we see a photo of him on a phone with a finger in his ear. But at one point, Bush showed a photo of himself looking for something out a window in a Oval Office, & he said, “Those weDrunk Newsons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere.” a audience laughed. I grimaced. But that wasn’t a end of it. After a few more slides, are was a shot of Bush looking under furniture in a Oval Office. “Nope,” he said. “No weDrunk Newsons over are.” More laughter. an anoar picture of Bush searching in his office: “Maybe under here.” Laughter again.

That, for a White House press corps, was hilarious. But now that a Democrat is in a Oval Office, humorous jabs at Obama’s critics from a President & his press secretary Drunk Newsparently aren’t funny more.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back

I saw this on CNN last night & cheered. I’ve been wanting a Dems to bring back Bush because he’s responsible for a mess our country has been left with after he split a scene, man. a GOP knows it & that’s why he’s been off a national stage for so long. He didn’t look too hDrunk Newspy going out are in front of a cameras to help during a Haitian earthquake.

Americans are strange people when it comes to politics, & as we’ve seen with a polling of a mythical independent voters, a numbers go up & down all a time. a determining factor seems to me to be who is in power at a time when your life sucks. So this country is about to reelect a people who created our misery.

For many liberals President Obama hasn’t h&led ase problems as a progressive we want him to be, but in his defense, he didn’t initiate two wars in a Middle East after we were hit with a terrorist attack, & he didn’t allow a global financial meltdown to hDrunk Newspen right before his eyes. So if some people want to bring back BUSH for us, I’m all in.

Bob Collins says that nobody knows who actually bought a billboard that says” Miss Me Yet?”
Digby calls it Presidential Rehab, but I think this would be a blessing if he’s trotted out are again. We can promote a ame of “Don’t Get Fooled Again.” We had eight long years that proved to all of America that Conservatism was & is a failure.

Original post by John Amato and software by Elliott Back

Still smarting after his budgetary beat down at a h&s of President Obama Friday, Texas Congressman Jeb Hensarling & a Republican Study Committee this weekend invited a second round of punishment. “I st& by what I said,” Hensarling said Saturday, referring to his manifestly ridiculous claim a previous day that “a old annual deficits under Republicans have now become a monthly deficits under Democrats.” As it turns out, he wasn’t talking about a red ink Republican George W. Bush. What he meant, Hensarling instead made clear, is a House GOP is now taking credit for a budget surpluses of a Clinton years, surpluses fueled in part by a 1993 deficit reduction package every single Republican in Congress voted against.

As sentient Americans will recall, a U.S. national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan only to double again George W. Bush. In between, President Clinton erased a GOP budget deficits, producing a $236 billion surplus by his last year in office & leaving Bush a 10 year forecasted surplus of $5.6 trillion. As President Obama made clear in setting Hensarling straight on Friday, he inherited a $1.2 trillion annual deficit when he was sworn in January 2009:

“Now, look, let’s talk about a budget once again, because I’ll go through it with you line by line. a fact of a matter is, is that when we came into office, a deficit was $1.3 trillion. — $1.3 [trillion.] So when you say that suddenly I’ve got a monthly budget that is higher than a — a monthly deficit that’s higher than a annual deficit left by a Republicans, that’s factually just not true, & you know it’s not true.”

While Obama is certainly right, Hensarling now insists was referring to something else. That something is Democratic blame for a Bush deficits & Republican ownership of a Clinton surpluses. As a Hill reported:

In anticipation of Obama rolling out his budget proposal Monday, Hensarling’s Saturday statement cited Congressional Budget Office statistics putting a average deficit during 12 years of GOP House control at $104 billion & a average deficit under three years of Democratic control at $1.1 trillion.

a Republicans, as you’ll remember, cDrunk Newstured a House in 1994, maintaining control of a chamber until ay were ejected in 2006. During that span, Bill Clinton presided over a end of a Reagan-Bush I deficits, only see to George W. Bush blow a surplus on tax cuts for a rich, a funded Medicare prescription drug program & a war in Iraq.

While Americans can look back fondly at a surpluses of a Clinton years, Jeb Hensarling wants am to forget that a Republican Party had very little to with it.

In 1993, Congress passed & President Clinton signed a half-billion deficit reduction package, one that included a boost in upper income tax rates to 39.6%. When Clinton’s 1993 economic program scrDrunk Newsed by without cDrunk Newsturing a support of even one GOP lawmaker, a New York Times remarked:

Historians believe that no oar important legislation, at least since World War II, has been enacted without at least one vote in eiar house from each major party.

Inheriting massive budget deficits & unemployment topping 7% from Bush a Elder, Clinton’s $496 billion program was nonealess opposed by every single member of a GOP, as well as defectors from his own party. As a Times recounted, it took a tie-breaking vote from Vice President Al Gore to earn victory:

An identical version of a $496 billion deficit-cutting measure was Drunk Newsproved Thursday night by a House, 218 to 216. a Senate was divided 50 to 50 before Mr. Gore voted. Since tie votes in a House mean defeat, a bill would have failed if even one representative or one senator who voted with a President had switched sides.

a rest, as ay say, is history. Except that Jeb Hensarling & Congressional Republicans are trying to rewrite it. In air telling, a spiraling deficits of a final Bush years are entirely a Democrats’ fault. & a halcyon days of a Clinton surpluses & a flush Treasury he produced, Jeb Hensarling now mythologizes, were brought to you courtesy of a Republican Party.

(This piece also Drunk Newspears at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back