Blame Enough to Go Around

Posted on | September 10, 2010 | 24 Comments

Stuart Schneiderman gets all Freudian about Obama:

In the end the American people bought an illusion, an illusion of competence and eptitude. They were wrong, and thus, they are getting screwed.

(Hat-tip: Insty.) But what about those of us who never bought the illusion? Why are we forced to suffer a fate that we tried to warn against? Why aren’t people who voted for Obama — and the pundits who urged them to do so — being held accountable for their error?

And let’s not let Republicans off the hook. Someone needs to go back and collect all the quotes from conservative pundits who, from 2007 on through Super Tuesday in 2008, assured us that John McCain would be a good presidential candidate.

Many of those pundits urged Republicans to back McCain because they assumed Hillary Clinton would be the Democrat nominee. Arguably McCain could have won that matchup, although I still insist Romeny was the better all-around candidate.

But McCain vs. Obama? No way.

The visuals were all wrong: Young, tall, brown and eloquent vs. old, short, bald and grumpy.

There was a glimmer of Republican hope in summer 2008, when Obama made that stupendously pretentious trip to Berlin, and then a real surge when McCain picked Palin as his running mate. But once Maverick backed the Bush bailout and especially after America saw the two guys on the same stage in the first debate — oh, it was hopeless.

Yet Republicans who actively promoted John McCain as the nominee (or who unwittingly did so, by backing Giuliani or Huckabee, rather than uniting behind Romney as the “Anybody But McCain” consensus) want to exempt themselves from culpability for Obama’s election.

And I’m still bitter about it.

Every time I see those Maverick-loving pundits sharing their “strategic insights” on our current predicament, I want to shout at the TV or computer: “Yeah, putz? Why should we believe a word you say now, when three years ago you were telling us about how that two-faced backstabbing RINO geezer was a surefire winner in 2008?”

Don’t Blame Me. I Voted for Bob Barr.

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Comments

24 Responses to “Blame Enough to Go Around”

Mick
September 10th, 2010 @ 8:07 am

Alexander Hamilton, in Federalist #68 gives the purpose and definition of what is a Natural Born Citizen, eligible to be POTUS:

“Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union?”

Obama is clearly not a “Creature raised from within”, or as Vattel would say, “indigene” (indigenous citizen), since his father was NEVER a citizen, and Obama 2 was born a British subject (admittedly). He exemplifies the worst fears of the framers that one without the neccessary allegiance and attachment to country would attain the presidency. The fruits of that willful blindness have ripened.
The public was willfully blind at the election and you and your fellow conservative bloggers are willfully blind now. You have the collective platform to force this into the MSM, but you refuse, beaten back by the Alinskyan “birther” epithet. Shame!!
Dave C
September 10th, 2010 @ 8:29 am

I admit I did have a bit of a Cassandra complex back then..
Lonely Conservative
September 10th, 2010 @ 9:15 am

I’m a little bitter about it too.
Joe
September 10th, 2010 @ 9:43 am

What ifs. That is like second guessing over whether you should have gone to the store the other night and then you would have missed the deer. I am sorry about both, but it is time to get over it. We have an election to win in 2012 and Mac Daddy is not running.

Romney had a lot of baggage (not the LDS stuff, the flip flopping stuff) that would have hurt him bad against either Hillary or Obama. Rather than channelling all your anger at Mac Daddy McCain, you might reflect on what had hurt the GOP going into that election.

An unpopular war. While GWB did turn things around (to his credit), that hurt the GOP.

A GOP controlled congress acting like patisan Democrats when it came to spending. Now compared to what is happening now they were spendthrifts, but that was the perception then.

An economy going into meltdown (after roughly six-eight years of GOP control). Obama did not signal what he really had in mind. I suspect Romney would have been the best leader running at the time to deal with it. But I doubt he would have gotten 50+% of the country to agree with that in 2008.

So who do you think is the GOP candidate for 2012? Any ideas?
Joe
September 10th, 2010 @ 10:00 am

Oh did I mention about six years of unrelenting MSM attacks on Bush and the GOP going into the 2008 election, Fitzgerald and his jihad of prosecuting a crime that did not happen, Foley chasing teenage boys around D.C., a Maccaca moment, Mr. Widestance, etc., etc. Most of it was complete nonsense and BS, but the climate was rather toxic for any GOP candidate.

Now the tide is going the other way (granted the MSM is still in the bag for Obama, but even they are starting to abandoning him).
Thomas L. Knapp
September 10th, 2010 @ 11:39 am

The GOP was between a rock and a hard place in 2008.

They weren’t going to win that presidential election, period.

Not even if Jesus and Elvis descended onto the national convention from on high to accept the presidential and vice-presidential nominations.

Not even if the Democrats ran a Charles Manson/Roseanne Barr ticket.

McCain earned the GOP’s nomination fair and square, then came closer to winning the general election than any of his GOP nomination opponents would have.
young4eyes
September 10th, 2010 @ 2:54 pm

“Why aren’t people who voted for Obama — and the pundits who urged them to do so — being held accountable for their error?”
Haha, really???
I guess Rush should be held accountable for the failed Bush presidency, Hannity should be held accountable for the faux war in Iraq, and the sundry imbeciles who supported Bush’s every move should be flogged.
Stacy, please…seriously, you can do better than that….
ak4mc
September 10th, 2010 @ 3:20 pm

They weren’t going to win that presidential election, period.

Not with McCain they weren’t. In many ways he looked like an anti-Obama — decades in public office, a long train of abuses and usurpations trail of accomplishments (like them or not) and an upstart running mate who actually improved his prospects for winning, at least initially.

But he was really only the flip side of the same coin, an entitled media wh — er, darling who got to the top of the heap in 2008 on the strength of buzz rather than merit. And of course when it began to look like his quest might succeed, he managed to yank failure from the jaws of victory … which Obama didn’t get around to until after the election.
ak4mc
September 10th, 2010 @ 3:21 pm

Strikethrough tags don’t work here. Dagnabbit.
Anon Y. Mous
September 10th, 2010 @ 4:08 pm

As a through-n-through McCain / Obama despiser, I mostly agree with you. BUT, how can you blame the Giuliani / Huckabee voters for Obama, and then exempt yourself by bragging that you voted for Barr?

A bit of cognitive dissidence, wouldn’t you say?
Joe
September 10th, 2010 @ 7:05 pm

I blame Stacy’s deer. That bastard cost us the election. Thanks for taking it out Stacy.
malclave
September 10th, 2010 @ 9:50 pm

“Not even if Jesus and Elvis descended onto the national convention from on high to accept the presidential and vice-presidential nominations.”

Would Jesus have been expected to show his birth certificate?

/duck