Obama Furthers The Cause Of Bipartisanship By…Accusing President Bush Of “Dereliction Of Duty”

It’s almost like Obama defines bi-partisanship, something he’s called for over and over again, as “shut up and agree with me.”

Speaking at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting at the Capitol Hilton in snow-drenched Washington today, President Obama touted new figures from the Labor Department showing a 0.3 percent decrease in the unemployment rate and took a few shots at former President Bush.
Faced with mounting national opposition to his party’s platform, the president reminded voters the real reason the trillion-dollar stimulus package still hasn’t reduced unemployment to 8 percent as promised: Bush did it, and it’ll take a lot of time to undo it.
“The country cannot return to the “dereliction of duty that helped deliver this recession,” Obama said. He added that the previous administration’s role in the economic meltdown was the “real outrage.”

I’ll not defend Bush on the economy. His administration was a mixed bag, and was especially bad toward the end. But I’m not sure what it is Obama is complaining about. The economic policies of Bush at the end of his administration – TARP and the auto industry bailouts specifically – were not only support by candidate/Senator Obama but expanded upon when Obama became President.
So Bush was guilty of “dereliction of duty” because his big-government economic rescue efforts weren’t…big enough? Bush, like Obama, was a deficit spender too. Is Obama suggesting that the “real outrage” of Bush’s term in office were…his deficits weren’t large enough?
Of course, Obama’s words aren’t really so much intended to be a valid criticism as Bush as deflection of criticism of his policies. Obama wants us to believe that he has to run bigger deficits, and have the government take over more of the economy, because Bush didn’t do enough.
The truth is that the government did too much under both Bush and Obama.