Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Jonathan Chait explains why Obama doesn’t deserve the blame he is receiving for unemployment. He begins with an analogy:

President Obama is like a pilot who took the controls of the plane in mid-flight after the engines fell out. It’s obvious that he didn’t cause the problem. But the passengers are going to focus on the fact that the plane was still airborne before he took over, and now, he’s crash-landing in the ocean.

Chait discussed the Republican strategy:

The Republican strategy here consists of two nifty steps. Step one consists of affixing Obama with the blame for rising unemployment. Step two is, when Obama points out that the economic collapse occurred before he took office, pummel him as a classless blame-shirker. Columns by National Review editor Rich Lowry (“Obama the graceless”), Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn (“The post-gracious president”), and numerous other conservative worthies have harped upon this theme. Obama must accede to the Republican campaign to blame him for the consequences of the 2008 economic collapse because to do otherwise would violate social etiquette. Obama’s pointing out that he inherited the recession is “graceless, whiny, and tin-eared,” complains Lowry.

He points out how Republicans previously blamed everything on Bill Clinton. The difference is that while many of their arguments against Clinton were bogus, it should be no surprise that unemployment remains high. Jobless recoveries are becoming the norm after recessions. Many businesses shut down and are therefore not rehiring now. Others changed the way they do business to cut costs and do not need to hire as many people as the economy recovers.