Obama should have blamed Bush, not bankers

London Times Online (U.K.) ^ | January 21, 2010 | Anatole Kaletsky

[Schnucki]

The Democrats’ disastrous defeat in Massachusetts will allow the President’s opponents to claim credit for the recovery

Why can the Left never win? Around the world, the election of Barack Obama inspired the hope of a new era of progressive politics, coming as it did after the spectacular failures of extreme conservatism under George W. Bush. But on Tuesday night, only one year after his inauguration, these hopes were suddenly destroyed.

The crushing defeat of the Democratic candidate to succeed the late Edward Kennedy as senator for Massachusetts, does not only wreck Mr Obama’s hopes of signing a health reform Bill this month, the main objective of his first year as President; far worse, as Massachusetts is the most solidly Democratic state in the union, it portends defeat for Democrats all across America in November’s congressional elections.

Massachusetts was the only state to vote Democrat in the most lopsided election in US history, the 1972 re-election of Richard Nixon. So the import of this defeat is undeniable even to the most Panglossian of left-wingers: if the Democrats could not hold Teddy Kennedy’s seat, no Democratic legislator anywhere in the US is secure.

The implication is that America and the world must now prepare for the longest lame-duck presidency in history, lasting at least until the 2012 election and, perhaps, until 2016 in the quite possible event that Mr Obama is re-elected alongside a Republican Congress determined to obstruct every idea that he represents. At a time when the need for effective government within America and the challenges for US global leadership are greater than for a generation, this is a potential disaster.

There is one hope. Left-of-centre parties the world over might learn from this electoral disaster. They might start to understand why conservatism has an inbuilt advantage in all

[American Constitutionalist]

The God of Israel is what made this country great....

[American Constitutionalist]

" Other than leftist solidarity, what possible reason could an English newspaper have for wanting the U.S. to adopt Obamacare. "

It always has and will always be a globalist agenda instigated by the large Communist/Socialist countries to bring down the USA and destroy her.

[hsalaw]

True.