We're Not Stupid; Stop Blaming Bush

That Democrats are trying to blame Bush for the horrendous scandal known as “Fast and Furious” is not surprising – and nothing new. Obama has been blaming Bush for the collapse of the housing bubble and the resulting disintegration of Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO’s) and Credit Default Swaps (CDS’s). This led to the collapse of the financial sector of our economy and a terrible recession. Blaming Bush for this makes about as much sense as blaming Bush for “Fast and Furious”. Blaming Bush for this makes about as much sense as blaming Rudy Giuliani for 9/11.

We survived the Clinton recession and had prosperity and high employment during the Bush years; unemployment averaged under 5%. Remember?

It wasn’t Bush or Bush Republicans who forced banks and other mortgage lenders to loan home-mortgage money to deadbeats. It was Democrat politicians.

It wasn’t George Bush who was the top recipient of campaign contributions from highly-paid executives of Fannie May and Freddie Mac. It was Barack Obama.

The only case that can be made against Bush for this disaster concerns the oversight of financial markets that was the responsibility of the Republican Administration. It could have and should have been better, but what people are conveniently forgetting is that home mortgages have always been considered like gold – second only in quality to US Treasury Bonds. CDO’s are collections of portions of home mortgages; what could be safer?

It wasn’t Republicans who 17 times denied Bush the tools to rein in Fannie May and Freddie Mac. It was Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, both recipients of huge contributions from executives of these agencies.

People are also forgetting that the Democrats won both houses of Congress in 2006 – and were basically running the country after January, 2007, the year the bubble exploded.