At WHAT point does HE own it?

The Political Memo in today’s NYT minces few words in Blaming the Guy Who Came Before Doesn’t Work Long and I’d like to just tag right along with that. Its thesis is clear. The Obama administration wastes no opportunity to turn the phrase “we inherited a lot of problems”.

As President Obama struggles to turn around the moribund economy and confront multiple international issues, he wastes few opportunities to remind the country that the problems are not of his making.

“The financial crisis this administration inherited is still creating painful challenges for businesses and families alike,” Mr. Obama said this week as he proposed spending limits.

“We inherited a financial crisis unlike any that we’ve seen in our time,” he said last week as he thrust General Motors into bankruptcy.

His advisers and allies follow the same script. “The Obama administration inherited a situation at Guantánamo that was intolerable,” James L. Jones, the national security adviser, said of the military prison in Cuba. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton defended the Obama foreign policy in the same vein. “We inherited a lot of problems,” she said.

Mr. Obama is hardly the first president to point to his predecessor. Ronald Reagan blamed Jimmy Carter for the poor economy he inherited, just as Bill Clinton blamed the first President Bush and the younger Mr. Bush then blamed Mr. Clinton. Former Bush aides like Karl Rove argue that Mr. Obama has done it more extensively and routinely than other presidents have, although the Obama team denies that.

But at a certain point, a new president assumes ownership of the problems and finds himself answering for his own actions. For Mr. Obama, even some advisers say that moment may be coming soon.

I’d really like to extend the question of when does he own it a bit further to what good does saying you inherited all these problems do when your solution is basically a continuation of those same failed policies?

In the two major areas of concern during the election and primary–the Iraq War and the Financial Crisis–we not only seen continuation of the same dysfunctional policies, but we’ve seeing appointment of the same dysfunctional policy makers in both cases. Timothy Geithner (with Obama’s consent and support) has basically been following the same policies of his predecessor Secretary of Wall Street Bailouts Hank Paulson. I know this because oc-08I’ve been following the economic policies quite closely because of obvious reasons. I have had to rely on others for examples in other policy areas. To say there is a plethora is understatement. I am getting tired of flushing spam from seriously delusional Obama voters into byte heaven that mostly reads: “Hillary would have done the same thing” and “he’s just doing what he has to at the moment, just wait it will change, you’ll see.”

Cannonfire has run a series of threads demonstrating how closely aligned President Obama’s policies have been to his predecessor. I’ve spent a few days following the links from The Worm turns and turns. One link is to Paul Craig Roberts at Global Research and the title absolutely says everything. It’s called Watching Obama Morph Into Dick Cheney. This one especially appeals to me because of a post I took a lot of grief for back in the day that used a side-by-side Broke Back Mountain view of the boyz will be boyz.

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