The Blame Game
Clay shared this video today. It’s POTUS Obama’s five minute address to the press. Nothing particularly revelatory – he spoke with his economic advisors, he wants us to know there are still tools in the toolbox… and, oh yeah, the Senate Republicans are playing politics again. About as surprising as bad weather systems in the Gulf Coasts and CEO’s deflecting responsibility.
What interests me, though, was the part of the speech Clay singled out: “It took nearly a decade to dig the hole we’re in.” He calls it Playing the Blame Game. That was it. One remark.
Its a silly thing to get upset about, really. It is altogether proper that American politicians should acknowledge the policies that came before them. They are, after all constantly dealing with those policies, their substantive impacts, and their political consequences. I admit that, inevitably, pols on both sides get carried away, start Playing the Blame Game to assault their opponents, distract and manipulate the public, but a one-sentence reminder that a current conditions have a politico-historical context is just plain responsible.
Now, I haven’t observed many similar situations (there have only been two presidencies in my adult life), but I am given to hypothesize that the reason this has always been such a sore spot for conservatives-after-Bush, is that George W. Bush was a shitty president. He was, wasn’t he? Liberals, of course, think so; so does a great majority of the public according to polls; so do many conservatives, at least ostensibly, based on their frequent and elaborate efforts to distance themselves from him during campaigns. In mixed company, today’s conservative rarely speaks of W. at all, let alone to defend him. Defending W. has become taboo – the defender, subject to the surprised gaze of the “other,” experiences an unwelcome measure of shame, for which there is no socially acceptable outlet. I would want the topic avoided, too.
So, what is the recourse, here, particularly when the desire to violate the taboo becomes strong in the subject? If you cannot defend W., you can always employ the simple expedient of attacking his critics. This, I think, is what we’re seeing with this Blame Game accusation. In fact, I would go on to ask if the displacement of this desire explains a lot of the Republican minority’s adolescent resentment in the two years of the Obama presidency.
Yes, I have shifted gears from policy to psychoanalysis.
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