QUOTE(WarMachine @ Feb 7 2009, 09:36 AM)
I want to ask an honest question: Did you honestly have an argument in mind when you made your assertion, or did you just want to appear "smart" and go against the grain by blaming Clinton instead of Bush? When I asked for supportive statements, did you just say, "Oh, shit, f*cker's calling me out on my bullshit," and then run a quick Google search and just copy-paste the first four results? More importantly, did you even
read any of the articles you linked?
Here's a direct quote from your first source:
QUOTE
This economic downturn, quite simply, is the fault of President Bush.
It wasn't his tax cut, as the Democrats claim. The tax cut has not had enough time to have any positive or negative effects it will have.
What caused this economic downturn goes back to when George W. Bush was merely President-elect, waiting to take office, and continued on through his first six months in office.
Repeatedly, President-elect, and then President, Bush talked about how the economy was in trouble. Arriving in office following the longest continuous economic upturn in generations, President Bush seized on a stock market that had faltered some in the uncertainty following the 2000 Presidential election.
The "bad" economy, he talked about. Again and again. The "bad" economy.
You know what happened as a result? I can tell you from my personal experience, the CFO of the corporation I was working for called a meeting and said, "The President keeps talking about the economy being 'bad.' Now, things don't seem bad, but let's just hold off on any new hires until we see how this pans out. And, let's hold off on all non-vital purchases, just for the time being."
And you can see right there how simply the words of President George W. Bush started slamming the breaks of the economy.
This, of course, all snowballed. First, people held off on hiring and purchases to see if the President's bleak prediction would come true. When this happened, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Less hiring and corporate spending created a measurable slowdown in the economy, which led people to say, "Hey, maybe the President is right," and tighten up even more. Each report grew worse and worse due to this, and a nation that was being told to expect the worst slowly came to believe it.
So, to put it simply, President Bush's constant talk about the economy being "bad" led it to be so.
The argument that Clinton is somehow to blame is the most comical thing we at The Moderate Independent have heard to date. The people who make this argument - partisan Republicans - invariably also claim that Clinton was not responsible for the prosperity during his two terms in office. That, they say, was just lucky timing.
Think about this: they say Clinton was not responsible for the economy while he was in office, but is responsible for the economy when he is not in office. Anyone with a basic grasp of logic knows these two things can not go together. Either the fate of the economy is luck or someone's responsibility. To make this argument, that Clinton, who presided over prosperity, should not get credit for that, but should get blame for a recession under President Bush is clearly unsupportable, illogical, and just childish partisan nonsense.
What makes it even clearer that President Bush, and not President Clinton, was to blame for ruining the economy, was that the downturn caused by Bush's actions did not come without warning. Both President Clinton and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman warned President-elect Bush that if he kept talking down the economy as he was, he would create a bad economy.
Your second source describes itself as follows:
QUOTE
HUMAN EVENTS is the news source President Reagan called his "favorite newspaper" and we still hold high the Reaganesque principles of free enterprise, limited government and, above all, a staunch, unwavering defense of American freedom.
That's not exactly what I would call an unbiased source. Now, I don't really think there is a such thing as "unbiased journalism", but c'mon -- that publication is clearly trying to atone for Reagan's failed economic policy by convincing us all that it actually
worked. In general, that publication is trying to push Reagan's laissez-faire economic policies; if you actually read the article you linked, you'll see that it's just criticism for government interventionism. Furthermore, all the "evidence" presented in the article is circumstantial at best -- there's not a clear cause-effect relationship in the actions presented in the article.
The third source merely presents the solitary
opinion of Joe Lieberman, who is more a Republican than a Democrat these days, and was trying to convince everyone that it was all Clinton's fault in order to secure an election victory for McCain, who was getting railed because of the downturn in the economy. Even if Lieberman is knowledgeable about the economic issue, it's still only
one man's opinion. And Lieberman obviously has an agenda, so I don't think we can take him seriously.
The fourth source is a little bit more well-rounded, although it still places some blame on Bush and even Reagan, but at least it does a better job of approaching the issue. Of course, aside from one or so quotes from an economist, the op-ed -- and that's an important point, it's an opinion piece -- doesn't really quote any experts on the issue. It's just more of the same "You wanna blame Bush? Well, look at Clinton!" bullshit, without any real supportive evidence. It's not exactly a brilliant piece of journalism.
So, in effect, those sources suck. Why don't you try stating in your own words why you think it's Clinton's fault, instead of just quickly Googling for "economy clinton fault" and posting up a bunch of links with none of your own original analysis? I mean, I have my doubts that you even
read anything you posted.
yeah right
How'd you know what I dream about?
