Daily Archives: August 29, 2011

One of the more common traits in modern American conservatism is the tendency to try to escape responsibility by generating specious arguments about scapegoating. Rather than saying flat out that X isn’t responsible for Y, the argument has become that blaming X for Y is just covering for Z, who is really responsible.

It’s ironic that the person Z usually represents – President Barack Obama – has used that strategy to his own benefit by insisting that we “look forward, not backward” when it comes to crimes committed by the Bush administration and Wall Street, but not for anyone else like courageous whistle blowers who reveal government wrongdoing and ordinary citizens committing relatively minor crimes.

This tactic is commonly used to let George W. Bush off the hook for policies he strongly advocated for and encouraged Congress to enact, because the negative consequences of those policies either harmed the country or made Bush and the Republican Party look bad in retrospect.

Nowhere is this more evident than with the economy and Bush’s tax cuts.

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Politicians who abuse the enormous power they wield over the lives of the American people to enhance their personal business interests are not a new phenomena by any means. With the sleazy revolving doorbetween massively rich and powerful corporations and the government posts meant to regulate themspinning off its hinges, such corruption has hardly seems worth writing about anymore.

The spat between the New York Times and Darrel Issa is only notable for two reasons. First, the Times wrote about Issa’s rather blatant corruption in using earmarks to enrich his business and himself personally. Usually these douchebags only enrich their friends and campaign contributors.

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