Iceberg dead astern!

Bob Englehart's commentary (excerpt):

In all the huffing and puffing from the extreme conservative wrong wing, I still haven't heard what they would've done constructively to fix the country in 2008 and 2009, not that I really want to. Hindsight is not only 20/20, it's cheap and cowardly. Real wisdom is demonstrated in the moment. The Republicans were on President Obama's case from the day after he was elected, yet they offered no alternative other than to do nothing and let the country's financial system collapse.

We seem to have forgotten what it was like when Barack Obama took office. I mean, I know we Americans have no long-term memory at all. We've not only forgotten the lessons of the Great Depression, but seemingly even the entire Bush administration, which was one disaster after another, ending up in a complete economic collapse only two years ago.

But are we really that ignorant about events less than two years ago? Honestly, how embarrassing is that? When Barack Obama took office, this economic collapse seemed to have no bottom. Our entire financial system was frozen, the stock market was crashing to new lows, and we were losing more jobs every month than we had the month before.

Obama's steady hand on the tiller steered us away from complete calamity. In fact, things started to turn around remarkably quickly (jobs, too - still losing jobs, but fewer every month). Unfortunately, his stimulus package wasn't big enough, especially considering that state and local governments were cutting spending even faster. And 40% of it was tax cuts to the middle class which (1) was not nearly as effective as direct government spending, and (2) somehow got him no credit at all with the people whose taxes he cut (while the Republicans' tax cuts for the wealthy seem to be wildly popular with the non-wealthy, too).

Unfortunately for our nation - and, likely, the world - Republicans quickly regrouped as the "Party of No." There is no chance at all for additional stimulus now, especially considering Democrats so cowardly they won't even vote on tax cuts for the middle class, for fear of reminding voters that they exist. And the party line on the right is that the stimulus did nothing. Yeah, believe it or not, this argument seems to work,... on Americans who can't even remember what they had for breakfast.

And apparently, there aren't enough of us who can remember. Or, at least, enough of us willing to get off the couch and actually vote. I fear for my country.