Cannot Have It Both Ways

The other day, I was watching CNN. And the crawl at the bottom of the screen said something along the lines of "Emanuel: Obama asking the right questions," and "Emanuel: Bush did not ask the right questions." The crawl was referring to the fact that Rahm EmanuelRahm Emanuel, Obama's Chief of Staff, has been has been trying to explain why it's taking so long for the President to make a decision on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. Mr. Emanuel is trying to say that Obama, being a man of intellect, is going to deliberate before he makes a decision... unlike the guy that came before him.

But I take issue with Rahm Emanuel's approach. He is trying to distract people by shifting the blame to Bush. It is very easy to say, "Hey, you can't blame my boss. He's just trying to correct the mistakes made by the former President, who royally screwed things up over there." I have noticed that a lot of Democrats and progressives play the blame game... even today. Bush and Cheney are history. They are irrelevant now. Nobody wants to hear about them anymore. They are the past. Obama is the present. Instead of recognizing and acknowledging President Obama's shortcomings, guys like Rahm Emanuel are all too happy to shift the blame to Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld. Well, not so much Rumsfeld. We don't hear much about him anymore. Nobody talks about Rumsfeld. But Bush and Cheney, for sure.

I get bored when people bring up Bush and Cheney when trying to justify why unemployment is rising in the United States, or why the war in Afghanistan is going so badly. People like Rahm Emanuel and Senior Advisor David AxelrodDavid Axelrod always try to use the politics of distraction, and I feel that this is the old way of doing politics. Not only is it old, but it's the Republican way if doing politics. Isn't Barack ObamaBarack Obama supposed to be a 21st century leader with a new way of doing politics? Then why are we seeing him partake in the 20th century, Republican-style political food fights?

When 9/11 happened, the Republicans blamed Clinton for it... even though Bush had already been in office 9 months, and he had plenty of time to heed the advice of the CIA, which had been warning about an impending al Qaida terrorist attack on US soil. Blaming the other guy may help you win politically in the short-term... but it definitely won't help you win in the long-term, as we have already seen (with the Republicans). And it certainly won't help you win in Afghanistan, nor will it help you create jobs at home.

If the Obama administration is serious about "looking forward and not backward," then it ought to practice what it preaches. If it insists on blaming the Bush administration, then instead of just launching political attacks on the Republicans, it should seek to prosecute the former Bush administration officials who broke the law. On the other hand, if the Obama administration really does want to "look forward and not backward," then not only should it avoid prosecuting Bush and Cheney, but it should also avoid criticizing them (whether directly or indirectly). Emanuel and Axelrod cannot have it both ways.