steve, didn't you know that republicans have a different dictionary than the rest of us do? they get to redefine any words they want to suit their needs.

RepubCo is desperately counting the days/hours/minutes and hoping that the pull date has arrived on the public's memory of Shrubwit's FUBAR tenure. They will run this up the pole as frequently as possible until they start to see a glazed look when ShrubCo is mentioned and then they will start running toward the light.

Hopefully, that light will continue to be an oncoming train for awhile but don't bet on the American public to fight their own ADD forever.

From the desk of John Cornyn:

I do understand the question and I do understand the truth about our country's recent economic history - I am a Republican and I just don't have to give a shit about such things!

It doesn't have to make sense. It only has to stick in the voters' minds.

Didn't you learn anything from Atwater and Rove?

File this under "Flailing around desperately."

Repeating a lie over and over again, as Cornyn and Co. will do between now and the 2010 elections, makes it a fact. An earlier commenter got it right, it just has to stick in voters' minds.

"Clinton had left him with an enormous budget surplus and we were on track to pay off the massive national debt"

I don't disagree with your main point here, but I find that continuing to use this oft repeated CW doesn't make it true. Wasn't the Clinton surplus a projected surplus? And didn't it include the surplus from the social security trust fund? And wouldn't it have also been shot through with the decrease in revenues from the past two recessions? To think that we would have paid off the debt is really disingenuous. And consider the much needed spending that did not occur under Clinton that might have helped put us on a much better trajectory for dealing with the mega issues confronting us today. Our "prosperity" under Clinton was much wasted.

Nah, the RepuGs have, simply, become Born Again Deficit Reduction zealots. They, all, have been through the 12 Step Program, which began the first week of last November. They realize that they sinned in running up deficits for eight years. Now, they are going forth into the world spreading the word. Such as Cornyn, or Dan Burton and a white haired RepuG Grandmama from NC, yesterday, during the climate change hearings in the House. "We have seen the light", they all shout. Ah, revival time has come once again to RepuGland. "Onward Christian, er White Christian Deficit Soldiers"

Yes, of course W inherited a surplus, but he also inherited the "Clinton-Gore Recession" and besides, that surplus was the result of Ronald Reagan's tax cuts. If you don't know that, you aren't paying attention to the wingnuts.

Reagan proved deficits don't matter. You can quote me on that.

Cornyn and his cohorts should stay away from the rhetoric that includes the term inheritance, or inherited, for he and his ilk have surely been born on third base themselves, and most have squandered that which they have earned not themselves! -Kevo

So what, did Bush pay back all the money he borrowed from the Chinese for the wars out of his own pocket, and I missed it?

Where were these budget hawks back then? Oh, I forgot, it wasn't in the budget, it was in the "budget".

"But for Cornyn to argue this isn't an "inherited situation" makes me wonder if he didn't understand the question."

He does.
It's part of the plan to start shifting the blame to Obama.

I heard similar on right wing radio today.

.

Yeah, most were born on third base - They are just now realizing that the new pitcher from Illinois had a superb pickoff move.

Surely if the thirties taught us anything, they taught us that economies can find equilibrium at any number of places on the curve, including down near the bottom.

Avoiding going broke is what will cause this country to go broke.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone," it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many things."

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master -- that's all."

-- from _Through the Looking Glass,_ by Lewis Carroll

Simple: the pilot screws up through massive incompetence, puts the plane in an almost unrecoverable dive, then hands control to the copilot and says "it's all your fault now."

Steve Benen wrote: "But for Cornyn to argue this isn't an 'inherited situation' makes me wonder if he didn't understand the question."

I wonder if Steve Benen understands the concept of "deliberate liar".

Sometimes, his commentaries on what Republicans say suggest that Steve has never heard of the notion that some people actually say things that they know to be untrue.

Of course, one difference in the deficit numbers is that Obama stopped using the phony accounting tricks Bush used to hide his budgetary malfeasance. And of course, the so-called "liberal media" never points this fact out.

"But for Cornyn to argue this isn't an 'inherited situation' makes me wonder if he isn't a lying sack of shit."

Fixed.

Thanks Zorro , I sometimes wonder if I am permenantly located there everytime I turn on the TEEVEE and cable NOOZE

Rush has been pounding this one for a couple of days. (Obama may have actually inherited some problems, but his Policies have made it much worse, so therefore, it's his. Er, something.) So, who is following whom? Cornyn following Limbaugh's lead?

Cornyn understood the question. He's just a big fat liar.

lou,

"Wasn't the Clinton surplus a projected surplus?"

No.

"And didn't it include the surplus from the social security trust fund?"

Surpluses either way.

"And wouldn't it have also been shot through with the decrease in revenues from the past two recessions?"

Why would President Clinton have enacted the failed policies that Chimpy enacted ?

"To think that we would have paid off the debt is really disingenuous."

Not at all. Greenspan actually testified to a Congressional committee that we would soon be in "danger" of doing just that. Why he considered it dangerous is a whole other crazy story.

"And consider the much needed spending that did not occur under Clinton that might have helped put us on a much better trajectory for dealing with the mega issues confronting us today."

The vast majority of the deficits and debt during the Chimpy administration were as a result of the tax cuts for the Rich & Corporate. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the cost of the four rounds of tax cuts is almost THREE TIMES AS GREAT as the cost of the Iraq war (including the costs of the military operations and subsequent reconstruction), all homeland security expenditures, the costs of rebuilding after September 11, all military action in Afghanistan, and all other costs of the so-called 'Global War On Terrorism', COMBINED.

"Our 'prosperity' under Clinton was much wasted."

* Twenty-three million net new jobs, the majority paying a higher wage than the average wage in the national economy.

* The Unemployment Rate fell for eight years in a row, while the National Labor Participation Rate increased (what a concept !). African-American unemployment was cut in half to its lowest level ever recorded, and Hispanic unemployment fell to the lowest level ever recorded.

* The overall poverty rate continuously declined every single year for eight years, falling from 15.1% in 1993 to 11.3% in 2000, including the largest six-year drop in poverty in nearly three decades. The child poverty rate declined from 22.7% to 18.9%, the largest drop in three decades.

* The longest consecutive yearly increase of real wage growth since the 1960s.

Hardly what the vast overwhelming majority of Americans would consider "wasted".

Progressives need to learn that the right in this country will lie about anything and keeping lying until the lie becomes the accepted knowledge on the topic--the end of the Vietnam War--or they are energetically opposed and exposed--Obama is a militant Muslim.

When the time comes, I have no doubt that Cornyn will be able to count on the good "journalists" at POLITICO to repeat the meme unquestioned.

Winguts still believe in the fallacy of "supply side" though they have no explanation for Bush's 8 years that resulted in the worst job growth in over 40 years, massive debt and the greatest disparity in income since the Gilded Age.

I'd be amazed if John Cornyn could figure out which shoe goes on which foot in the morning.

uh, if he isn't up to the task, why did he apply for the job? where was he and what was he doing to fix this thing that he inherited, prior to him getting this tic gift? which party held the most political power the 2 yrs prior to this? political POWER is a problem for us. attacking me for a different belief helps them (the pols), not you or i.

I figured this piece was going to address this article, which shows that Obama is responsible for a mere "sliver" of the deficit we face now:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/10/business/economy/10leonhardt.htm?_r=1

You shouldn't be surprised. Wingnuts are desperate to reverse their current situation. Of course, coming up with new policies and goals is unacceptable to conservatives, so they are forced to continue to try and do it the other way. No matter how many wars, deaths, honor or integrity must be sacrificed.