BIZARRO ALERT: Fox News Editorial Says “Obama Has Continued Bush’s Failed Policies”

For anyone looking for signs that Fox News is running out of effective attacks to level at President Obama, the evidence just became abundantly clear that they are near to depleting their reservoir of smears. An editorial on their web site has just deployed the ultimate insult imaginable: Obama Has Continued Bush’s Failed Policies.

Fox News

Ouch. That was brutal and totally uncalled for. Accusing Obama of doing anything remotely similar to Bush is not only cruel, it is delusional. Tea Party leader Phil Kerpen, the author of the editorial, cites as evidence that Obama is following in Bush’s footsteps the fact that he installed Timothy Geithner as Treasury Secretary and reappointed Ben Bernanke chairman of the Federal Reserve. The fact that almost every economic policy enacted by the Obama administration is the polar opposite of Bush’s seems to have escaped Kerpen.

It was Bush who ushered in across-the-board tax cuts that have been one of the most prominent contributors to the deficit. It was Bush who piled on spending for defense driven by two wars that he kept off the books. It was Bush who deregulated Wall Street leading to an unprecedented financial calamity. It was Bush who presided over policies that rewarded corporations for outsourcing jobs. Those are the failed policies for which the Bush administration will forever be remembered. And since Obama has opposed all of them, it’s hard to see what Kerpen is getting at in his feverish rant.

Kerpen is correct, however, in describing Bush’s policies as having failed. Even today, the vast majority of the nation’s outstanding debt is the result of the Bush administration’s mismanagement of the economy. It’s good to see that Fox News is finally acknowledging that it was Bush who was responsible for the mess we are in today. That’s one of the reasons that Fox, and the rest of the right-wing media, have all but scrubbed Bush from their reporting. And since the right is now connecting Obama to the Bush debacle, they have to put to rest their complaints about Democrats blaming Bush.

However, a big point that Fox and Kerpen have ignored is that there is someone who actually is advocating a continuation of the failed Bush policies: Mitt Romney. He is pushing for even more across-the-board tax cuts that mainly benefit the wealthy and will balloon the debt. He seems to support military interventions in every country with whom we have some conflict (i.e. Iran, Syria, North Korea). He wants to accelerate deregulation for businesses and has promised to reverse every regulation that Obama enacted on day one if he is elected. And his record of having profited personally from eliminating American jobs and sending them to China is well documented.

Despite this universal acclimation of the Bush agenda, Romney has utterly excised Bush from his campaign. Romney has not appeared in public with Bush; has not celebrated his endorsement; has not deployed him as a surrogate. And while Bush himself is being treated, deservedly, as a pariah, Romney has stacked his campaign with former officials from the Bush administration. It is uncommon, to say the least, for the past president of a candidate’s party to be so brazenly cast aside, even as he espouses the same economic program.

Yet somehow Kerpen managed to close his article by arguing that Romney represents change and saying that “It’s time to try something different.” That’s a conclusion that can only be explained by the onset of dementia. A Romney administration would be a carbon copy of the Bush years. And now Fox News has helpfully agreed that the Bush years were a disaster. So in a way, that’s an endorsement of Obama. Well, except for the fact that the editorial gets the facts all wrong and reverses the roles of Obama and Romney as Bush’s successor. But other than that…

Advertisement:

4 thoughts on “BIZARRO ALERT: Fox News Editorial Says “Obama Has Continued Bush’s Failed Policies”

  1. I’m surprised they haven’t just claimed Bush was a democrat. Whenever a republican gets caught up in the many scandles we have seen over the last few years and Fox actually reports on it, they always put a D in front of the criminal republican politician. When they get called out on it they always say it was an unintended error, yet they have done it so many times that explanation is a stretch, to say the least. Fox’s mission is to make their audience less informed, which they have achieved with great success.

    • That would be hilarious – Bush the Democrat. I wouldn’t put it past them.

  2. First of all,Bush was WAY too dumb to be passed-off as a Democrat, even by Fox Snooze! If they can even think of Bush as a Democrat, then how ’bout Romney as a *gasp* Nazi? Or kinder, Fascist? (Look up the definition of “fascist” folks. It’s pretty close to the far right/tea party’s view!)
    And anyone who thinks that Rmoney “represents change”,they’d better watch their pockets, because the only change that Rat’s a** is interested in is the ka-ching of the “change” (Oh, sorry! He’s only interested in $100 bills or, preferably, large checks)he’s stolen from the pockets of all those former Bain-owned/ripped-off companies employees, whose jobs were sent to where people used to sing of “taking a slow boat to get to”.
    I literally fear for my life, should that Rat get elected, because the “Double Rs” want healthcare only for themselves and their families; care for those with at least 3 homes, one of which has to be in the Hamptons; oh, and those who have access to oil wells, coal mines, and anyone who belongs to their same country club or church (hell, my family belonged to a country club when I was a kid; what happened? Oh, I only earned 70¢ for each $ my male colleagues made!(And I was had a very specialized position. And more education!) See? Now I’m an early-retired person (due to a disability, no less!) so I’m a moocher and whiner! So there! LOL

  3. Sorry to tell you, but it was Clinton that signed Gramm-Leach-Bliley, undoing the chief regulatory bulwark Glass-Steagall, as well as the Commodities Futures Modernization Act, signed December 21, 2000, which deregulated derivatives.

    These are the bomb that blew up Wall Street and its victims.

    The true criminals are Rubin, Greenspan and Samuelsohn — uh, Summers. Watch http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/

Comments are closed.