Political Irony

American politics has become a cynical blame game. The left-wing blames Obama for not doing enough, the right-wing blames Obama for everything (which is their coward’s strategy for getting votes, since it is easy to blame the party in power, and doesn’t require to to have any, um, ideas).

My favorite conservative, Andrew Sullivan has an excellent post today on this:

the sheer difficulties and resistance that Obama has met with – from the FNC propaganda channel to the balls-free liberal press to the utopian activist left and deranged radical right – is remarkable. … If you backed Obama and want to see real change continue, now is not the time to give up because it’s not as easy as you thought it would be. Now is the time to oppose the passionate intensity of his opponents with the reasoned conviction that elected him.

From The Grey Path:

Coming out of 2008 people were angry with the economic state of the country. Although Obama has made most of the right moves, keeping us out of an outright depression, he’s still being blamed the economy as it stands. Regardless of the Gulf oil spill being due to lax oversight by the Mineral and Mining Service under Bush and arrogance on the part of BP, Obama is being blamed for not swimming down and capping the well himself.

Between 1992 and 1994, Republicans and right-wing pundits stoked the growing anger from Bush-41’s violating his pledge not to raise taxes and redirected it toward Clinton and the Democratic Congress. Now, they’re stoking random anger just so people will be furious with the government and in a throw-the-bums-out mood in November.

From ‘Niceguy’ Eddie:

… blaming WHOMEVER IS IN OFFICE for all the world’s problems. These are the people who blamed Bush’41 for the ’92 recession that got Clinton elected, and who blame Obama for the current economic mess… which started under Bush’43… who ALSO wasn’t really responsible for it… (bet you didn’t expect me to say THAT!)… because the biggest single cause was the repeal of the Glass-Steagal act, which happened under Clinton… who also is not to blame, because it was legislation written by Republicans and based on the failed Libertarian Philosophy that the Right is still pushing to this day!

But we’ll give the last word to Jon Stewart, who observes that nothing Obama does will ever make conservative pundits happy: