It's Mean To Tell The Truth

By BJ Bjornson

The Washington Post is playing concern troll today, publishing an article all but scolding Obama for noting that many of the problems the US is facing are the result of his predecessor's actions and policies. Apparently the proper way to talk to Republicans who refuse to support anything he does and wish for his failure is to help them flush Bush down the memory hole. As Steve Benen puts it:

The problem, if I'm reading the article right, isn't that the president is saying anything untrue. Rather, we're dealing with a dynamic in which one president hands off a catastrophe -- several catastrophes, actually -- to a successor, and the successor isn't supposed to talk about it.

Indeed, the Post's Scott Wilson seems to think the president has exceeded political norms by pointing to the almost-comical mess Bush left on Obama's desk. Wilson chides Obama for using "acid" reminders, offering "partisan" defenses, sounding "petty." To highlight his point, Wilson pointed to the president saying recently that "we've inherited a terrible mess."

That doesn't sound especially "acid," "partisan," or "petty" to me, but your mileage may vary.

More to the point, Benen notes just what has been left on Obama's desk.

Bush left Obama to clean up an economic crisis, an abysmal job market, a budget mess, a failing financial industry, a collapsing U.S. auto industry, global warming, an absurd health care system, an equally absurd energy framework, and two costly wars. Reminding Americans of where we've come from and where we're going doesn't seem unreasonable.

Add to that an abysmal international image, piss-poor diplomatic relations with numerous countries, including some traditional allies, and a massive lost in credibility and legitimacy when it comes to being a moderator in international disputes.

Obama did inherit a mess. The fact that Republicans want to be absolved of their complicity in creating that mess is no reason for Obama not to remind people of it.