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“It’s Bush’s Fault” is Starting to Wear Thin.

By Rod Pennington

For nearly two years now every problem, small and large, according to President Barack Obama, has been George W. Bush’s fault. From the poor economy, to unemployment, to the war, to souring relations with allies and enemies they have all been laid at the feet of Mr. Obama’s predecessor.

Former President George W. Bush

Lately the easy catchall phrase, “The mess we inherited from the previous administration”, has lost some of it power. Still the president mentioned the problems he “inherited” twice during a Wisconsin town hall meeting this week. Old stump speeches die hard.

People agreed that Bush was a disaster, that is why they turned to Obama in the first place. Besides, it wasn’t like Senator Obama was sitting in his office contemplating what to include in this third memoir when this mess was suddenly dumped in his lap. He ran hard to get the presidency. President Obama didn’t “inherit” anything; he asked America for a chance to fix the problems he saw. Nearly 70 million of his fellow citizen voted to let him try. Now, after nearly two years and a huge increase in the national debt, nothing seems to be getting better.

Unemployment is at 9.5% even after a generous adjustment by the Department of Labor this month. The bureaucratic incompetence and foot dragging of this administration and Mr. Obama’s “cool” indifference in response to the Gulf oil spill is starting to make Bush’s reaction to Katrina look good by comparison. All the bowing to our enemies and the abandonment of the only democracy in the Middle East, Israel, has raised a few eyebrows. Talking nice to the nut job regimes around the planet has not made the world any safer.

Plus, President Obama came to Washington claiming to be a new kind of politician. Unfortunately for Mr. Obama and the country, it is easier to take the politician out of Chicago than it is to take Chicago out of the politician. Obama has proven to be thin-skinned when even lightly criticized and hyper-partisan. There hasn’t been this combination at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. since LBJ moved out. President Obama has been more Mayor Daley than Gandhi.

Apparently there is still some mileage left on the old “blame Bush” tire. According to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll, 41% still point the finger at the Republicans for the bad economy with 28% now saying it was the Democrat’s fault. The rest, except for the usual 5% who have no opinion, thought both sides were to blame.

With the November elections only 4 months away it is unlikely President Obama will suddenly stop blaming everything on President Bush and the Republicans. However, after the fall elections he may want to ask himself if he is ready to starting trying to fix problems instead of trying to fix blame.