Over the weekend, I had this exchange with a know-nothing Marxist who attends this blog. Theme: Bush was not to blame for the 2008 collapse.

1. AnonymousFebruary 17, 2014 at 12:56 AM

   Is that why Clinton left office with a 66% approval rating? Higher than Reagan's 62%. Your president GW Bush was at 34% when left.

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2. 
   John SmithsonFebruary 17, 2014 at 2:49 AM

   And Bush won both of his elections. Go figure, moron. Besides, bith Clinton and Bush administered the best economies in our history. Obama has even taken a class on economics, and that fact is all too obvioujs.

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3. 
   AnonymousFebruary 17, 2014 at 3:36 AM

   What planet are you living on? Bush destroyed the economy and it will take longer than Obama to clean up the mess.

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4. 
   John SmithsonFebruary 17, 2014 at 11:13 AM

   Your knowledge of history - in this case "recent" history - is laughable. Because Bush was the president when the bottom fell out of the housing/finance "Affordable Housing" market does not mean he is or was the cause of the collapse. Name one specific that makes Bush responsible for said collapse. I ask knowing that you will not be able to come up with anything. Go ahead, genius, prove me wrong.
   
   Under Bush, our nations GDP increased every month for 52 months, the longest expansion of economic growth in our history, and that includes the great economy we had under Clinton. Under Bush, 66% of the workforce was employed, with the average unemployment rate being 4.8% excluding 2008; including that year, the unemployment rate was 5.5% and the "U6" rate averaged 8% .
   
   But Bush was a Big Government politician and supported the Affordable Housing policies along with the Marxist Dems, who opposed everything he tried to do. You forget that he tried to reel in excessive lending, during his Administration, but the Dems turned his efforts at restraint into a "Bush hates poor people" theme and morons such as yourself, took up those talking points.
   It was Barney Frank, head of the House Finance Committee, who told the nation that the banking industry was just fine, six freaking weeks before the collapse. You conveniently forget that the collapse happened near the end of the second year of a Democrat controlled congress in both houses --- that includes Democrat control of both banking/finance committees in the House and the Senate. So why not blame the Democrats since they had control of the legislature and both banking committee? Go ahead and answer that question.
   In 2006, Bush tried to make fix the issues that brought on the collapse. When he tried, the Dems told him to go hell. So drop dead on your nonsensical rendition of "it was Bush's fault." Don't forget that Hussein was a member of the Senate, at the time, yet offered no suggestions on how to deal with the growing crisis except to continue offering more and more high risk loans to the poor, folks who could not make their payments. Oh, I forget, Hussein had no training whatsoever in finance, so, of course, he had no working ideas on the economy -- kind of like his current fiscal policies.
   BTW, contrast Bush’s economy with Obama’s jobless recovery: a GDP that averages 2.1% per year; a U6 unemployment rate (that is folks who are out of work but looking, whether they are receiving benefits or not) that averages 15% and a current rate of 13.1% while that rate averaged 8% under the Bush Administration. The net jobs total (I know, Democrats have no clue what a “net total” is) finds our country with 3 million fewer job positions than before Obama. Your guy thought the solution to the job vacuum was to found in weather stripping our homes, giving away electric golf carts, fixing potholes and the silliness of the “shovel ready” fantasy.