by Things are going horribly wrong for the President. The job numbers for the last month were stagnant. The vacation that he took was constantly criticized for extravagance—and he didn’t even get to stay the entire time because of the hurricane. His new jobs plan which looks a lot like his old jobs plan is dead on arrival. And he still hasn’t gotten the message that this is his economy and he won’t be running against Bush is 2012.
The Ghosts of Presidents Past
That’s right, President Obama believes that he’ll be facing off with Bush again in 2012. How else can one explain the fact that, despite the fact that most of the country blames him and his policies for where we are today, he’s still talking about what his predecessor did?
Now, I’m not one to think that former President Bush could do no wrong. I think there’s much that he did that could have been done differently. However, I do believe that after two and a half years with a new President’s policies in place you can start to attribute where we are to what a President has done—especially when the first stimulus bill was signed into law shortly after he took office.
But there’s a bigger issue here.
At some point one needs to stop looking to the past and start to accept responsibility—regardless of who did what.
Software Engineering
As a software engineer, I have had to fix bugs that weren’t my making. When I was just a young programmer, me and my group would actually spend time trying to figure out whose bug it was—who put it in the code—so that we could blame that person. Either that person would then be tasked with fixing the bug, or we’d fix the bug but continue to bring it up to the other developer.
When I got a new job, and was thrust into a project where I was the only one on the team, I found myself confronting bugs that were not of my making. However, it was of no use to tell my boss that it wasn’t my bug. They still looked to me to fix it, and eventually I found that there was little use to blaming others—the work still needed to be done, and I could look good by fixing the situation.
The same thing applies to President Obama. If he could fix the economy and job situation, you’d be hearing nothing about former President Bush. It’s because of his inability that all he can do is point the finger elsewhere.
Truth be told, I’m not sure just how much a President can actually do to effect the economy. However, if he wishes to say that former President Bush’s policies are what got us into this mess, then he’s saying that a President can do something, and that he’s unable to do anything about it.
That says something to his power and his weakness. I’m just tired of hearing the blame game—fix the thing!
