After the 9/11 attacks Democrats were blaming Bush for not acting on intelligence advisories (or for actually conducting a false flag operation) and Republicans were blaming Clinton for not taking bin Laden out when he had the opportunity. I felt that there was plenty of blame to go around. When Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011 Democrats were saying that Obama succeeded where Bush failed. Republicans were saying that Obama didn't get him, our military did. My take on it was "Why do people insist on partisanship at a time like this? You have to give Obama credit for authorizing the mission, but at the same time you can't seriously believe that none of the groundwork for that mission was laid during the Bush administration. Why can't we just be happy that he's dead and say 'Good for us! We finally got that bastard. GO AMERICA!' ? "
In order to see things objectively you have to leave the two-party mentality behind and drop the partisan talking points. That's true when it comes to foreign policy and it's equally true when it comes to the economy. Take this week's Forbes article, for example.
This is the best private sector jobs creation performance in American history
“What’s now clear is that the Obama administration policies have outperformed the Reagan administration policies for job creation and unemployment reduction. Even though Reagan had the benefit of a growing Boomer class to ignite economic growth, while Obama has been forced to deal with a retiring workforce developing special needs. During the eight years preceding Obama there was a net reduction in jobs in America. We now are rapidly moving toward higher, sustainable jobs growth.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/09/05/obama-outperforms-reagan-on-jobs-growth-and-investing/
The article goes on to state that the average stock market returns during the Obama administration are better than those of the Reagan administration. Had this come from a left-wing publication or MSNBC it might be suspect, but Forbes has never been known as a liberal magazine. The polls may not reflect this but Obama has presided over an impressive economic recovery. We can debate all day long what these numbers mean, but the idea that Obama has wrecked the economy is now hard to accept.
Personally I believe that the economy is cyclical and that presidents get too much of the credit in good times and too much blame in the bad times. I do feel that Reagan was a bit of an exception because his administration marked a transformation in how we view the role of government and the progressive tax system. Supply-side economics, referred to as "vodoo economics" by some of his opponents including his own VP, was a radical concept at the time and the Reagan Revolution included that as part of its platform.
As for Clinton, he was fortunate enough to take office at a time when the technology revolution and the worldwide web produced an incredible economic boom that eventually went bust at the end of his term. I will credit Clinton (and Greenspan) for managing the growth fairly well, but it would be a bit of a stretch to say that he produced it, despite the fact that his vice-president took partial credit for creating the internet.
Bush took office less than a year after the dotcom bubble burst and inherited a sluggish economy that eventually plunged into a recession following 9/11. Despite the obstacles he faced the economy rebounded and grew steadily from 2003-2008, only to tank again as a result of the financial meltdown of 2008 where again, there was plenty of blame to go around.
Obama inherited a mess and has constantly reminded us of that fact, but now with this latest report he can honestly say that things have indeed turned around. How much of this is cyclical and how much is due to Obama's leadership is certainly debatable but the facts are there for all to see, and if this trend continues as the article suggests it will be hard for the Republicans to make a strong argument for changing parties in 2016 based on the economy.
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