Posted by
Andrews on Monday, March 02, 2009 10:32:33 AM
We saw it before, when Afghanistan went from being a "quagmire" and "the next Vietnam" to being "where we should be fighting" and "a war we all supported" as soon as we went into Iraq, but Democrat amnesia is happening on an even greater scale than before.
First, and most noticeably, all criticism of Bush's budget deficits seems to have been forgotten. All those who cried about all the money Bush spent are happily lining up behind a supposed stimulus bill that will balloon the deficit far beyond anything Bush did. Not just the general budget either, but on military spending amnesia is the rule of the day. Those who decried Bush's military spending have no problem with Obama's continuation of the same.
Also forgotten is the NIE which claimed Iran was not a threat, had no intention of making nuclear weapons, and was just generally maligned by Bush. Instead we have Obama administration officials saying we will do what we must to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. Forgotten is not only the claim Iran has no such ambitions, but also the calls for talk above all else.
Similarly forgotten are the criticisms of Bush's TARP legislation*. When Obama proposed essentially the same, but with more spending, it was greeted as necessary legislation.
Even trivial complaints have apparently been forgotten. Despite all their criticism of Bush for "going on vacation" during critical moments, not one voice has been raised against Obama for his continuing campaign, taking him out of Washington for quite some time during his first few weeks in office. (We saw this on the campaign trail too, where Obama's gaffes were "honest mistakes", while Bush's were signs of brain damage.)
Of course, it could simply be partisanship. The complaints could have been merely for show against Bush, or maybe they were sincere and people are just holding their tongues out of loyalty to Obama, but I can't believe that. Must be some sort of amnesia.
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* For the record I thought TARP was a bad idea too. So is Obama's "super TARP", or whatever they want to call it. If we must have a bailout, what is wrong with something like a Resolution Trust for bad loans? If the government indemnified bad loans, then buy them back at cost, and do nothing else. That should be enough to restore confidence, as well as give all mortgages value and make them liquid assets once more. Problem solved. A lot less room for pork and social engineering, but it would do everything the government claims it wants to do. (Of course, doing nothing at all and letting the market fix itself is better, but no one would dare propose that.)
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POSTSCRIPT
My many mentions of the RTC a a model are not meant to suggest the RTC was either ideal or even a good idea. What I mean to point out is that targeted means, aimed at buying back bad assets, have worked in the past, without any additional stimulus. The RTC itself was as much a political football as any government solution, but we managed to get through the S&L debacle without massive stimulus bills. So I mention the RTC only in context of keeping our plans, if we must have them, small and narrowly focused.