Pollster.com

The Republicans have been saying its all about jobs,well Ive google up their history the past 100yrs on creating jobs in here is what i have come up with.For the past 100yrs only 1 Republican has lowered the unemployment rate.Every Democrat who haa followed a Republican into the Whitehouse the past 100yrs has come into a recession.but every Republican who have followed a Democrat came into the Whitehouse under a great economy with the exception of Reagan.from 1921 to 1922 Harding came into the Whitehouse when the unemployment rate was 4.9,when he died it was 5.7, from 1922-1929 Coolidge came into the Whitehouse when the rate was 5.7 when he left it was 7.8,from 1929-1933 Hoover came into the Whitehouse at 7.8 when he left it was 23.1,from 1953-1961 Eisenhower came into the Whitehouse at 2.9 when he left it was 6.6,from 1969-1974 Nixon came into the Whitehouse at 3.4 when he left it was 5.5,from 1974-1977 Ford came into the Whitehouse at 5.5 when he left it was 7.5,from 1981-1989 Reagan came into the Whitehouse at 7.5 when he left it was 5.4,from 1989-1993 Bush came into the Whitehouse at 5.4 when he left it was 7.3,from 2001-2009 Bushjr came into the Whitehouse at 4.2 when he left it was 7.6,but when you check the Democrats the past 100yrs it tells a whole different picture. From 1913-1921 Wilson came into the Whitehouse at 5.7 when he left it was 4.9,from 1933-1945 Roosavelt came into the Whitehouse at 23.1 when he died it was 3.0,from 1945-1953 Truman came into the Whitehouse at 3.0 when he left it was 2.9,from 1961-1963 Kennedy came into the Whitehouse at 6.6 when he died it was 5.4,from 1963-1969 Johnson came into the Whitehouse at 5.4 when he left it was 3.4,from 1977-1981 Carter came into the Whitehouse at 7.5 when he left it was 7.5,from 1993-2001 Clinton came into the Whitehouse at 7.3 when he left it was 4.2,Obama came into the Whitehouse at 7.6 in now its 9.9 but Obama has a few yrs to go,but can you see my point the Republicans dont create jobs period!it seems the only time America elects a Democrat is when the economy is very bad,but America elects Republicans when the economy is strong,i just cant figure this out,but the proof is in the pudding

Uhhhh, Harding inherieted a horrible economy after Wilson. Many call it the forgotten depression.....because Hardings policies shrank g'ment and reduced spending and it lead to the roaring 20's.

George W. came into office in a recession after the tech crash of 2000.

You must be a product of public schooling.

@ Stillow:

If you think Melvin is a product of "public schooling" (of which there is nothing wrong, since 98% of Americans are products of public schooling), then you must be a product of schooling from Fox News.

If you'd like, I could post a wall of text too and claim that it passes for real political/economic analysis.

You guys actually respond to Melvin? Wouldn't that require reading through that dense wall of rambling text.

I swear we could use a few of Melvin's crazy posts build a border wall which would stop even Mexican Spiderman.

nelcon1551 - How long did it take you to come up with that?

Did you want to refute the Depression of 1920 Harding came into and how his policies ended it...or did you want to refute that W came into office among major financial scandals under Clinton from worldcom, enron, etc...a recession starting in the 1st quarter of 2001...or pehraps the impact of 9/11 on the economy....which of course Bush planned.

Stillow,

Recession is a word with a technical definition. No matter how hard you try, you can't change the definition of the word. There were not 3 quarters of negative economic growth preceding GWB's administration. There was not a recession in 2000. There WAS a recession in 2002/2003 in the USA, but that was caused by 9/11 aftermath and not GWB.

rdw4potus - True, the shot handed defiinition of recession was not met in 2001. But if you ask economists, its pretty accepted the economy was in recession from march 2001 to the end of the year....and then 9/11 of course hit which brought things down further. the point is, W did not walk into the economy the left claims he did...it was not a booming eocnomy, it was hurt from the tech bubble, things were horriblyeslow in 2001 and then it got hit by 9/11.

Stillow,

I'll grant you that the economy was not great in 2001 (or most of 2000). Things were pretty awful, especially in other parts of the world. However, I can't help but note that we're now talking about March 2001, which is after GWB took office. I agree that things weren't Bush's fault, but they also didn't happen during Clinton's term...

Stillow said: "You must be a product of public schooling."
What a snobby, elitist, silver-spoon-fed, arrogant little fuck.

Eleven comments in and no-one's mentioned the subject of the poll yet: oil spill!

My bet is that the big O's numbers will fall dramatically now that pix of Louisiana's sludge-drenched marshlands are becoming more widespread. It's one thing to blame BP for the blowout, but it's still the President's job to protect the nation's coastline. He's had a month to prepare, and it sure looks like close to nothing has been done.

Even my Mom has turned on Obama -- I never thought I'd see the day!

Marcello: On the oil spill topic: Yes you are right, it is BP's fault. They owned the offshore rig, they failed to prevent the disaster from occurring. The governments failure lies in allowing companies like BP to risk our environment to make a buck. For this, and other failures today Obama said "In case you’re wondering who’s responsible, I take responsibility." How refreshing after Bush's lack of personal responsibility! (ie, Our intelligence was wrong, not my fault (Iraq); everyone thought there was WMD's, not my fault (Iraq); Heckuva job Brownie (Katrina); Do you think Iraq took our focus off Afghanistan Mr. Cheney (of course not!); its someone, anyone else's fault (Republicans on economy). The GOP is characterized (as demonstrated by these and countless other examples) as the party that utterly lacks personal responsibility.

bigfoot9p6 - What world do you live in? In his lame press conferenc ehe blamed what he always calls "the previous administration".

Obama is a total idiot...he ha sno clue what he is doing, he is way out of his league and has no leadership qualities. anyone who stands there and blames people in the past is just stupid. It doesn't matter whose fault the damn leak is, we need to stop the leak, then we can play the blame game. for Obama to stand there and do what he did today was moronic and showed his poor leadership qualities. the guy is constantly running for president, and never being president.

I don't want the president sitting ther ewhining about past presidents, I want him there taking charge of a situation...soemthing he has failed to do since day 1 on this oil spill. The fact we had a hurriance was not Bush's fault, the fualt we had an oil spill was not Obama's fault, but both are to blame for the way they rected and the way they demonstrate ladership.

Dumb and dumber once again win the day. I'm so sick of Obama whining about the past....tell the dude to grow a pair, man up and actually lead for once. he sounds like some whiny junior high kid who gets piccked on.

for cryin out loud, lead the damn country and stop pointing fingers on everything. Its your fault obama for not taking charge on this sspill on day 1....and despite your stupid claims, it is not Bush's fault.

Yeah, really.

It was refreshing for BOBO to take responsibility today for the first time in office for anything. Since he's been the most finger pointing prez in history up to now.

To right wing commenters Staty and Stillow. 1) I believe that you folks are STILL blaming carter for various stuff that happens. You can expect Dems to talk about bush for as long as you harp on carter, and the clock seems to still be running. 2) As for sounding like poor whiny junior high school kids who get picked on, you should remember that whenever you complain about the "lamestream media". Palin (the rights dream prez) has made herself rich by professionally whining. 3) i didn't blame bush for the oil spill. I blame him for flying over New Orleans and watching people die like a damn spectator sport. 4) StatyPolly Google "obama taking responsibility." aside from whiny right wing bloggers like yourself, you will find plenty of links for obama doing just that. Open your eyes dude. Quit letting Beck, Hannity, and OReilly take turns with you every night after a long day of hot Limbaugh lovin'

"anyone who stands there and blames people in the past is just stupid."

Then almost every president is stupid. Particularly ones for whom their predecessor was from a different party.

Bigfoot mentioned Carter. Reagan was running against Carter his entire administration. Google his 1984 RNC acceptance speech. It was all about Carter.

G.W. Bush blamed Clinton for not going after Al Qaeda.

Nixon blamed LBJ for the taping system in the white house that would have gotten him impeached. He also blamed his predecessors for Vietnam.

JFK blamed Eisenhower for various things, particularly defense policy.

Eisenhower blamed Truman for some labor problems.

FDR and the Democrats were invoked Hoover for a generation. Quite effectively.

They all do it. Stop acting like Obama is the first.

They probably have legitimate reasons to blame their predecessors. Their hands are tied quite a bit by the past presidents' policies.

@Marcello Mastroianni

"It's one thing to blame BP for the blowout, but it's still the President's job to protect the nation's coastline. He's had a month to prepare, and it sure looks like close to nothing has been done."

Bear in mind that BP also lied about the severity of the spill initially until it became clear that their estimates were way too low. The Feds are essentially at the mercy of BP here, since they have all (or at least most I think) the equipment in place needed to even try to stop the leak. Don't think for a second that the Feds wouldn't cut BP out of the process if they could.

Anyone who thinks the public schools are doing their job must not deal with the writing abilities of 20 year olds. (It's not limited to just them but from 20 on I can't solely put the blame on the schools)

@Lt. Cmdr. Walrus:

"The Feds are essentially at the mercy of BP here"

The Feds are perfectly capable of building sand barriers to protect the coastline -- we've done it before, it's not high-tech and it's relatively inexpensive. But it's taken a month to get an "emergency permit" for *one* of the six barriers that Louisiana has requested. The remaining five remain unapproved.

Think about it -- the President of the most powerful nation on the planet coudln't get a permit approved for an entire month! You can't blame BP for that. That's simple incompetence there.