There's been a lot of bad news in the last year or so. Heck, in the last eight years. Pretty much all of it has been blamed on President Bush... from a recession that arguably started during the end of the Clinton years to the 9/11 terrorist attack which happened just a short time after Bush became president, to things outside his control such as hurricanes. Some are trying to blame the housing crisis and resulting financial meltdown on Bush even though, if anything, blame should be placed at the feet of Democrats. And today they redefined "recession" so that it could be declared that it started in December 2007--still solidly during the Bush administration.

The question arises, when will Obama be responsible?

This isn't a criticism of Obama nor am I implying that Obama should be held responsible before he's even president. The only thing Obama might be directly responsible for so far is a sell-off on Wall Street that I don't think is unreasonable to believe to be partly due to investors worrying that Obama is going to raise capital gains taxes--so it makes sense to sell off investments during the 2008 tax year so that those capital gains taxes can be minimized. But I'm not trying to blame Obama for the current financial crisis or the current alleged recession.

But I have to wonder... with all the efforts to blame Bush for everything for the last eight years, at what point will any "blame" start falling on the Obama administration? We know darn well that anything bad that happens in the first year of Obama's administration will be blamed on inheriting a bad situation from Bush (even though Bush doesn't get the same benefit of judgment for dealing with a situation that was worsening at the end of the Clinton administration). Heck, if the economic situation remains troubled through 2009 and into 2010 despite Obama's economic response, it won't be because Obama's response was wrong... it'll be because the problem left by Bush was so big that there was nothing Obama could do to fix it quickly.

On the other hand, if things start improving in January or February 2009 it won't be because the business cycle is inherently cyclical but will be attributed to renewed confidence because of the beginning of Obama's presidency.

So I wonder... does that mean that things are simply attributable to Bush as long as the news is bad but will be attributable to Obama as soon as the news turns good? Is that the state of our news media, society, and anti-Bush hatred today? Are Americans so naive as to believe that?