Republicans have been on a seven-year crusade to demonize President Obama from every angle, including blaming the president for things that happened before he was president. Most recently, 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz tried to blame Obama for the 2008 economic crash, reported MSNBC.
More specifically, Cruz likened Barack Obama to Jimmy Carter when he meant to compare Carter and George W. Bush. All of the things still afflicting the country happened on George W.’s watch. However, Cruz is using his patented lying trickery to twist the narrative to fit his agenda.
The Washington Post reported:
Speaking at an event hosted by the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) linked the economic policies of President Obama with those of the much-maligned Jimmy Carter. “Historically, the economy has grown 3.3 percent a year since World War II,” he said. “There are only two four-year periods where growth averaged less than 1 percent: 1978 to 1982, coming out of the Jimmy Carter administration, and 2008 to 2012. Same failed economic policies.”
If you didn’t catch it, Cruz employed a nifty little bit of rhetorical spin there. What he’s actually comparing isn’t Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. It’s Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush.
To break down what happened, Cruz said Carter’s poor economy faded into the first years of Ronald Reagan’s first presidential term. However, he applies the economic nosedive of 2008 to President Obama — who didn’t take office until 2009. Cruz is playing with the numbers, trying to absolve Bush while placing blame on Obama. Considering how the timeline falls, it can’t work like that.
Sadly, Cruz isn’t the first to try a similar political parlor trick. MSNBC reported that one-third of Louisiana Republicans actually blame Obama for the government’s poor response to Hurricane Katrina. That occurred in 2005. Obama was a junior senator that year.
Cruz’s political plan is to make things up as he goes along and hope for suckers dumb enough to believe it. He’s a sideshow and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
