[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

The truly decisive move that broke the arc of history was his handling of the stimulus. The public was desperate for a leader who would speak with confidence, and they were ready to follow wherever the president led. Yet instead of indicting the economic policies and principles that had just eliminated eight million jobs,

Oh please! He never stopped repeating that mantra.

in the most damaging of the tic-like gestures of compromise that have become the hallmark of his presidency — and against the advice of multiple Nobel-Prize-winning economists — he backed away from his advisers who proposed a big stimulus, and then diluted it with tax cuts that had already been shown to be inert. The result, as predicted in advance, was a half-stimulus that half-stimulated the economy.

Maybe 5% stimulated, not half. And a bigger percent of union boondoggles would have been even less effective.

That, in turn, led the White House to feel rightly unappreciated for having saved the country from another Great Depression but in the unenviable position of having to argue a counterfactual — that something terrible might have happened had it not half-acted.

[sickoflibs]

RE :” ..he backed away from his advisers who proposed a big stimulus, and then diluted it with tax cuts (correction liberal, they were tax 'credits' not 'cuts') that had already been shown to be inert. The result, as predicted in advance, was a half-stimulus that half-stimulated the economy........Maybe 5% stimulated, not half. And a bigger percent of union boondoggles would have been even less effective.”

Have you noticed that liberal’s narrative is that Obama lost to Republicans on everything big he signed into law? He lost on the stimulus (all those tax cuts), he lost on Obama-care (no public plan, mostly Republican ideas), he lost on tax increases (last December) and he lost on the debt deal by cutting spending. And with the last two it was because Republican terrorists held the middle class/economy hostage. You can bet if the economy was good they wouldnt be claming Obama lost on all this stuff, it all be their wins like with Clinton.

On our side Boehner says he got 95% of what he wanted in the debt limit deal, then the market crashes and then S+P announces a credit downgrade a few days later. Great work RINO Boehner.