Obama's Bad Luck

Call it bad luck. President Obama gets passed a stimulus bill aimed to revive the economy, and Karl Rove says that what he's really done is revive the GOP.

Arguing in The Wall Street Journal that ``sometime late this year or early next the economy'' would have rebounded ``on its own,'' Rove contends that the bill sets us on a path to wasteful spending, higher taxes, and the return of Republicanism. Obama, Rove says, ``has already re-energized the GOP and sparked a spending debate that will last for years. The president won this legislative battle, but at a high price -- fiscally and politically.''

So it's bad luck for Obama that he took over when the economy had merely cratered and hadn't yet bored a hole so deep that we could see magma coming up from the center of the earth, because this sets the stage for a return to the policies that Americans repudiated last November. Bad luck that the permissive, `party on!' policies of Bush and Greenspan and the other bubblemasters had produced only a paralytic credit crisis and a wolf of a recession at the time of the election, and not a full blown depression complete with riots, shantytowns, and marathon dances, because Rove -- without the agreement of any credible economist on the left or the right -- can now speciously argue that the economy would have recovered on its own. Bad luck that Obama passed this bill before more people were out of work, more people were evicted, more businesses closed, more kids had to drop out of school, because now Rove can believe that people not driven to the depths of utter desperation will all the sooner ungratefully wonder `what have you done for me lately?'

Bad luck that the party whose tax cuts for the rich stimulated a whopping deficit that we carry into this recession still myopically views tax cuts as stimulating a way out. Bad luck that millions of jobs lost in the last months didn't include Karl Rove's slot at the Journal, because now the Boy Pseudo-Genius whose divisive, destructive and fear-mongering tactics gave this country arguably the worst president in its history (arguably, as in, one could argue the point -- but I won't) still has a forum in which to propound his thoroughly invalidated views.

Comments

[wendynyc]

Who really cares what Rove thinks?

[dessertsfirst]

Kinda reminds me of the story about the general in the army during WW I who, when he found himself surrounded, said Not to worry boys, we got 'em just where we want 'em.
It seems that the repubs are crowing a bit too early.... another saying: don't count your chickens before they hatch.
Oh, yeah... Karl Rove? Who is that masked man?

[Pupadup4oBama]

Isn't that what McCan't said during the elections?

[candlepower]

Obama is playing the Goppers and they are so happy to be up and dancing they see it as a revival.
At the end of the dance they'll either get with the program or they'll look so ridiculous to their electorates that they'll be history at the next election.

[historymatters]

you seem surprised that any argument made by Karl Rove is entirely divorced from logic. Best thing to do is just ignore him.

[channelerchik]

Please, can we stop referring to Karl Rove's opinions as if he matters At All?

[alguien]

it remains to be seen, i guess. if the stimulus plan works then it probably will signify the death knell for the republican party. if it fails then president obama does indeed end up seeming to have failed.

[santamonica39]

the stimulus alone AIN'T going to get us even close to being out of this mess. And Obama better make that clear and aggressively pursue his policy agenda which MUST include overhauling our financial and banking regulations, universal health care, new trade regulations, and an increase in the minimum wage

[Ipanemagirl]

Well said and well written< Malanowski! I agree enphatically, and hope Rove gets to read your article!
We should shove it under his nose!. ROVE and BUSH are a disgrace to this country! and the damage has been done on a world scale! Now I think they have created the downfall of the" roman empire," but replace it with the "united states world empire". Will we have a chance to recover with the likes of Rove, and GOPs still around and continuing the damage????I am not too optimistic about this.unless the dems take overcompletely, nothng will recover..

[AnnfromCA]

The more I think about what's transpired, the more it makes sense. Republicans were dissatisfied with Bush, mostly on spending issues. They weren't thrilled with McCain, seeing him as one who would negotiate too much on that issue. I personally thought he made it clear that he would not.

So this isn't a revival as much as it is a "Return to Romney."

Mitt should run again.

[holyhandgrenaid]

And he will lose again. It'll be fun to watch.

BTW, I love it every time you go out of the way to prove you were never an HRC supporter.. what with opposing all the positions she actually stands for and all

[LABC]

I know - PumaAnn is proof positive that those edumacation cuts in California are taking their toll...

Mitt Romney - LOL!!

[harriscrl3]

See you need to be on your toes here because what the republicans are doing is creating their tautological talking points for the next Presidential election. If the economy rebounds it would have rebounded anyhow and Obama basically wasted money. If it doesnt rebound then its Obama's fault for spending all that money and now we are in debt further and the ecnoomy is shot to heck. So it doesnt matter what Obama did it would have energized the GOP anyway because Obama is a Democrat end of story.

Carol

[fishgirl26]

One of the arguments that I run into with republicans all the time is their lack of understanding to how we got here. We got here due to the deregulation and policies of the Bush Administration. We got here by wasteful spending on an unwarrented and unwanted war started by the Bush Administration. We got here due to their own lack of understanding of the economy. We got here because of people like Karl Rove. No one is going to fix this mess in a month, a year, or 3 years! Someday, and it will be sooner rather than later, the republican base will realize just how far they are from real americans.

[AnnfromCA]

*blink*

The reason Rove is feared is because he's so astute.

[Freesia2]

The reason Rove is feared is because he plays dirty. If you call that astute then it explains a great deal.

[MajorKong]

So how's that permanent Republican majority of his working out so far?

[Michael Valentine]

Enough of Karl Rove. Lock him up for contempt of congress and be done with this America hater.

[Mdazes]

Mr Rove has been proven wrong many times before.

[Grunty1]

Karl Rove is always wrong, so him predicting a recovery from the Rushpublicans is the fat lady singing.

[kissy kai]

So they are telling us, if Obama fails we are going to put this country back in there hands I HOPE NEVER SHOULD THEY BE GIVEN A CHANCE TO GOVERN THIS COUNTRY.

[Pupadup4oBama]

I think he wishes he were Rush

[Daniel Carr]

They only think it has revived their party. All they are really doing is driving more nails into their coffin.

Good thing too, because we don't want these bloodsucking fiends rising up in the dead of night again.

[Jon Van Kuiken]

I wonder if Karl is using his same "special math" for his economic prognostications as he did for his guarantee that the GOP would win big in 2006 and that McCain was so far ahead of Obama in November?