So what's new here? The Clinton folks left the White House in a shambles when they pulled out. It's not Bush or Obama, Clinton or Bush. It's Republicans versus Democrats, as always.

How was the White House left "in shambles" after Clinton? The country was doing pretty darn well until idiot Bush came into power. Palin is the most evil thing facing America right now...more so then the "terrorists."

It's not Bush or Obama, Clinton or Bush.

No, in the case of Bush Jr., it was about him. Him and the black-hearted Cheney. They turned out to be bad people. Dumb and mean.

The second Harold and Kumar movie portrayed W as a really likeable guy. Maybe he is just misunderstood? ;)

Frankly, I don't see much difference between the current chimp and the prior chimp.

Chimp2 promised to close Gitmo on day one. It's still open.

Chimp2 promised to pull the troops out of Iraq. They're still there.

Chimp2 promosed new openness and partisan cooperation in DC. It's worse than ever.

Chimp2 just said he'd send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

So what's the difference?

Robert Collins, please explain how the Clintons pulled out and left the White House in shambles? Are you referring to the unfounded anecdotal stories about how they supposedly trashed the White House and pulled off certain keys on the computer keyboards?.. because if you are, that's all been debunked and it was all false... It was just used to rally their hate everything Clinton base... PS - Im not a big Clinton fan since many of the changed policies used to cause this economic downturn were enabled by the Clinton machine...but Im tired of the Clinton bashing that has no basis... he did plenty to be called out on with factual basis behind it...

Well, let's deal with a few facts here, as uncomfortable as they are to some of you who posted. Please note, I do not care how the Clinton's left the White House, but I do care how they left the country. Like this.

1. Budget surpluses as far as the eye could see, with the major fiscal problem being what happens when the national debt if paid off.

2. Falling poverty rates, particularly among children.

3. Record job creation.

4. An end (belatedly) to an awful civil war in the balkans.

5. Terrorist who made the first attack on the WTC brought to justice.

6. A justice department staffed by competent professionals, not ideological hacks from Pat Robertson University.

7. Increased environmental protections.

8. Appointment of competent jurists to the Supreme Court.

9. A Vice President, well you know the story there.

Now with respect to the current occupant.

1. He promised to close Gitmo within a year, and will come close to that.

2. He promised to pull out troops from Iraq, and is doing that.

3. He promised new openess and has done some, but not a good as he should have. He tried bi-partisan activity but the other side will have none of it. The Republicans, for example, voted unamimously in the Senate against even taking up debate of health care, then complain that they are not consulted on the process. Get Real.

4. Said he would send 30k troops to Afganistan, which is exactly what he said he would do in the campaign.

5. Said health care would be the top legislative priority, which it is.

6. Promised to restore American standing in the world, and got the Nobel Peace Prize for doing that. (deserved or not).

Welcome to fact based discussion.

The difference is dramatic.

The current POTUS reads speeches much better, appearing more intelligent. His cadence is crisp, with excellent self reference, and a clear distinction of who is really to blame for our troubles.

Combined with the right amount of stern mannerisms when he speaks, I am convinced he knows what the hell he is doing, and we will emerge from this Bush incited jam in no time.

Fiscal discipline, transparency, and a new, less black hearted Washington way are just around the corner. I can feel it!

We're still a long way from any kind of health care reform that would stem the rise in costs and the increasing threat of Medicare underfunding. If we don't fix these trends, they'll get us even before global warming does. The president hasn't done enough to make this happen.

“It's Republicans versus Democrats, as always.”
It’s so simple to break it down like that, isn’t it Robert?
Could it be the indisputable fact that, as a nation, we are wholly ignorant of the truth? The Palins and the Becks of the world are masters of misinformation. Nevertheless their face-time with the media seems never ending. The Bill Moyers and Charlie Roses of the world who take time to explain the issues are ignored. People like you, live in an altered state of reality. So really there are only two kinds of people, those who take the time to learn the true issues and those who don’t. Stick with fiction Robert, you’ll sleep better than I do!
Oh, by the way, I think you are the real "chimp."

Well, "bad Brad" (nice anonymous posting, by the way), all I know for sure is CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, MSNBC, CNN and virtually every other mainstream media outlet fawns over Obama like he is the second coming. And the facts are otherwise.

Obama promised that the stimulus would contain the unemployment rate at 8.5%.

What is it now?

Obama promised to close Gitmo on his first day in office.

It's still open.

Obama just escalated the war in Afghanistan. I don't know how old you are, but I remember both the Korean and Vietnam escalations... under Democrats.

The democrats controlled congress beginning in 2006... not 2008 when Obama was elected. We have a deficit that is unequalled in the history of this country.

So, tell me, you love this guy because he let some kid rub his head? What kind of a rube are you?

I'm 55 years old. This guy is Jimmy Carter all over again. Put on a sweater and quit driving your car. That's fine fr now. But the fact is Obama is the result of the Bush years just as surely as Carter was the result of the Nixon years.

And he is a one term wonder, period.

I'll be the chump, not the chimp. I think Obama is doing the best he can given the historic environment he inherited. Whatever happened to the concept of "he's the President" that I learned from my parents, one a Republican and one a Democrat (Nixon v Kennedy). We learned that the idea of a democratic republic was you waited for the election to reject the person you did not like.
And in the interim, you did your best to help out for the good of the country. Perpetual partisan bickering does us no good at all. Regardless of the side of the fence you stand. I thought Bush Jr. was a terrible president, but he still did some things right. Let history rank him and let Obama earn his place. Why are we so angry at one another?

Well, "Bad Brad", you post anonymously. Therefore you are a coward. Enjoy being a coward, "Bad Brad".

I think part of the problem is the attempt to demonize everyone who disagrees with you (see Fox News). I didn't vote for George W (twice) and thought he would be a disaster from the start. Doesn't mean I call him names. As Drew G says, he did do a few things right (Iraq not being one of them). Obama has had only 11 months or so to fix the last eight years of the admins dismantling the structure of this country by borrowing and spending like there is no tomorrow, and sending a bunch of it overseas. It's time to let a different group try a different tack and hopefully they won't keep getting bogged down by trying to include politicians that are not working toward compromise, but obstruction.

God bless us. Every one.

Tiny Tim

I just wish that the administration and its vast supporters would get past blaming W for everything they can't seem to fix. Regardless of one's party affiliations, the fact remains that monumental promises were made in the campaign (and the majority of us bought into them) and none of those promises have been kept a year on now with no real solutions in sight.

A salient point was made above about this being a two party governing system in our country. That is a good thing. Checks and balances etc.. The fact is, we should all be angry at the total discord that BOTH parties are guilty of and we should be working to meet somewhere in the middle instead of working on the total destruction of the other side and it's platforms.

Two major points here to sum up:
Clinton- 8 years of peace and prosperity.

Chimp W: Goes on and on endlessly about how he protected America after the attacks of 9/11 when in fact it was his own administration who ignored critical evidence and repeated warnings from national security experts of an imminent attack on US soil. Their own arrogance and ignorance allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place.

A few more points to sum up....

8 yrs of prosperity, yes, but peace?
Somalia?
Yugoslavia/Balkans?
1993 WTC bombing?
Osama declared war on the US in 1998, but we all knew he was just kidding, right?

NASDAQ bubble burst March, 2000:
Oh, and your 8 yrs of prosperity was really a binge drinker's fratboy all-nighter which Bush inherited the hangover
NASDAQ bubble burst March, 2000. The Clinton-enabled 9/11 fiasco was just jet-fuel on the bubble-bust, but the Chimp did not cry "I inherited it!".

cow-ard "A person who thinks with his head rather than feel with his gut." example;
Thinking is the coward's way out. (OK, it's from the urban slang dictionary)

"God bless us, everyone" Exactly, so why do we kill each other for God's blessing? Scrooge.

None of these arguements really matter. Unless unemployment comes down to 7-8% before the 2010 elections, the Democrats stand to lose a lot of seats in Congress. And unless the economy improves in a major way; Obama will be gone after the 2012 elections as well.

Actually a report suggests almost ALL of the deficit is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan + tax cuts and the economic implosion caused the deficit.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3036

PS Robert Collins anyone here could be posting under a fake name. How do you know I am Mike H? And so what if someone posts using a pseudonym? Are you wanting an ability to confront people face-to-face?

Actually a report suggests almost ALL of the deficit is the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan + tax cuts and the economic implosion caused the deficit.

My apologies for the bad grammar.

Actually a report suggests the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan + tax cuts and the economic implosion cased almost all of the current deficit.

I have to differ with the whole "8 years of peace and prosperity" under Clinton line. That was certainly not the case for a lot of Americans; much pain was felt at the lower end of the economic scale.

The health care mess we're in right now was getting worse the whole Clinton administration. As those of you with memories may remember, there was an attempt to reform health care in 1993 that came to be known as "HillaryCare" in some quarters and was killed by the Democrats in the Senate after it foundered. The impetus behind effort was that there were already problems with the skyrocketing costs of health care nearly two decades ago. The failure of the reform meant that the system pretty much continued on the way it had before, only with the insurance companies getting even more creative about ways to squeeze blood out of their pools, until we got to where we are today. Didn't all happen under Bush.

NAFTA kind of sucked for a lot of people.

Welfare "reform" made Bill Clinton all sunny and happy-looking, and jiggering the numbers of welfare recipients made it look great on paper, but if you knew or worked with people who were affected by it, or saw programs for training and development cut and turned into ways to pay fast-food franchises to give recipients dead-end jobs, it wasn't so pretty.

The '90s also saw an increase in the number of people having to take on second jobs or multiple part-time jobs to get by. I suppose that made them more "prosperous" but they didn't tend to be the people living in big houses on hills.

Unless unemployment comes down to 7-8% before the 2010 elections,

That's almost an impossibility at this point. Too many jobs lost too fast, and simply slowing down the rate of loss doesn't actually bring down the unemployment rate.

Paul Krugman was pointing out last week (http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/the-jobs-deficit/) that with 8 million jobs lost over the past two years, an immediate monthly average of nearly 600,000 new jobs would need to be added to the economy to recover back to the pre-crisis rate (and to account for jobs needed for population growth) in two years.

That's about what we'd need to get partway back (7-8%) by the 2010 elections. Frankly, if people saw half a million or more new jobs nationwide starting next month, I think they'd be pretty happy.

Don't be holding your breath re. those jobs (except for service-related positions). NPR just ran yet another story about US businesses rushing to China to develop new green technology where its "cheaper" to do so. The irony of increasingly pollution-ridden Chinese and Mongolian countryside serving as sites for green technology development was not lost on me.

I hope that these companies have to pay some kind of hefty penalty for taking this development - and its associated jobs - out of the country but I have my doubts.

Mr. Collins -

Name calling is precisely why this country is in terrible shape today - the utter lack of civility is appalling. It also leaves me to wonder if you have no capacity for logical thought, thus resort to this behaviour.

It seems to me that anyone who criticizes Mr. Obama for not closing the Guantanamo prison quickly enough is, by inference, agreeing that the prison is a blot on the Constitution, and must be even more outraged at Mr. Bush, who opened it.

Frankly, I don't see much difference between the current chimp and the prior chimp.

One went to Harvard. The other went to Yale. So much for the value of an Ivy League education.