Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:44 am
On Real Time, Bill Maher challenged and shattered the Republican delusion that Obama has ruined America.
Here is the video:
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Maher said,
It just doesn’t feel like Obama has ruined America. Republicans used to talk a lot about this thing called the stock market, and how it helped not just the rich, but middle class folks whose pensions and 401ks depended on it, well now they never seem to mention the stock market. Perhaps, because under President Blackenstein the Dow has doubled, or as Republicans call it, devastating economic news.
Now, there certainly still is poverty in our country, but it’s obviously among the underclass that you don’t see. The very people that today’s Republicans could give a sh*t about, so I don’t understand why they’re all so upset about the economy, except of course, it’s their big issue. So they have to pretend that America is a rotten compost where people are eating cat food and wiping their ass with the Pennysaver. And weirdly, Obama kind of has to pretend that too, because if he doesn’t, then he’s out of touch.
So we all wind up living in this fictional picture of America that actually would be more appropriate for the year before Obama took office. Remember 2008? I do. That’s when Lehman Brothers collapsed and the market froze and they measuring GM for a pumpkin lot. And when you opened your bank statement you saw the drowned Japanese girl from The Ring, and then you died.
And yes, I am saying we can keep blaming Bush for that. It’s the same as blaming rats for the Black Plague. Just because you’re sick of hearing historians saying it doesn’t mean it stopped being true. George Bush left a flaming pile of dog sh*t on the White House steps, and now it’s gone, and Mitt Romney has a hell of a nerve running on the idea that I’m going to fix the economy by restoring the policies of the party that destroyed it.
The question that voters should ask themselves over the last month of this campaign is a simple one. Do I want to go back to the policies of George W. Bush? That’s what Mitt Romney is offering. No matter what the issue, foreign or domestic, Romney’s answer is to do what Bush did.
Obama’s argument that progress has been made was greatly aided by the new jobs numbers which prove, as Maher pointed out, that this absurd idea that America has been ruined by President Obama is simply not true.
Only through the bizzaro glasses that cloud the Republican worldview could things like tax cuts and improved access to healthcare be seen as the roots of ruination for our country. However, that’s what Mitt Romney and the GOP have decided to sell the voters.
Maher was correct. Go to the mall, and you’ll see more people shopping. I noticed months ago that friends and family who were putting out applications every day started getting called in for interviews, and they are now getting jobs. The evidence of real tangible economic improvement is all around us, but Republicans are trying to win an election, so they are trying to attach the sins and stumbles of their president to Barack Obama.
Republicans are hoping to make a majority of Americans forget the facts, ignore the signs of economic improvement that are all around them, and vote for Mitt Romney. But just like how we all know that rats caused the Black Plague (Maher’s analogy), the American people haven’t forgotten that it was the Republicans who destroyed the economy.
Romney had a window of opportunity to sell his alternate universe economy right after the debate, but the new jobs numbers sent him crashing back to Earth, and reminded America that Barack Obama really does have this country moving forward.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
