By Mark Esposito, Weekend Blogger
In the red corner, wearing angelic white trunks trimmed in gold that darling of the Right, that Gipper of trickle-down economics, the Great Communicator himself, Ron–ald “The California Killer” Rea–gan.
And in the blue corner with black trunks trimmed in red, the “change” President, the foil of all things conservative, the first of firsts in American History, Bar–ack “Betcha Can’t Believe Where I’m From” O–Bam–a.
And today’s contest is a three-round fight for the World Super Heavyweight Economics Guru Belt. The format is a 10 point “must” system and you are the judges. I, your humble ring announcer, get a scorecard but it’s only advisory.
But first some background, both fighters weigh in after tangling with some decidedly tough contenders before this big bout. Reagan came into office with a much more serious recession than most on the Left give him credit for. In addition, he followed hot on the heels of what his predecessor called the great American “malaise.” Plus he had an adversarial relationship with the nation’s biggest rival, the Soviet Union.
Obama came into office with a war on two fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan, a massive recession, and a world-wide financial industry on the brink of collapse. Pretty tough contenders. Plus, he had and has a Congressional opposition party whose expressed goal was to make sure nothing he proposed made it into law. And law, as you know, is the political boxer’s stock-in-trade.
Ding— ding — ding.
Continue reading “Best Out Of Three Rounds: Obama vs. Reagan On The Economy”
Fascinating book out by NPR media reporter, David Folkenflik, entitled Murdoch’s World: The Last of the Old Media Empires that explores the strange world of publisher Rupert Murdoch. Gobbler of such English-speaking newspapers as The News of The World, The Sun, The Wall Street Journal, and The Times, Murdoch is mostly known for his media collaboration with Roger Ailes in the development and promotion of Fox News, the Right’s mouthpiece of choice. Until his inglorious dismount from credibility in the London Phone Hacking scandal where a Murdoch newspaper employee was convicted of hacking the telephone voice mails of murdered British teenager, Milly Dowler, Murdoch had personified all that is unseemly about tabloid journalism. The personification of Charles Foster Kane, Murdoch fed the Right the red meat of dissention blending news with opinion and relying on practices that were criticized by honest journalists (even conservative ones) around the world calling it right-leaning tabloidism (
I have been reading about the latest Breitbart-inspired dire prediction of the nefarious ( and possibly illegal) machinations of the Obama Administration. You know “Green Paper-Gate.” It’s the one where the conservative blog, Breitbart, reports that a draft solicitation proposal for purchase of green paper issued by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services definitely means that the Obama Administration is secretly planning a massive amnesty campaign of undocumented aliens. And, worse still, that it’s keeping that secret until after the mid-term elections as a boon to Democratic candidates. I went back and took a look at the proposal and here is the offending language: “The requirement is for an estimated 4 million cards annually with the potential to buy as many as 34 million cards total. The ordering periods for this requirement shall be for a total of five (5) years.” A draft RFP issued a few days later contains the same language but adds the following: “In addition, the Contractor shall demonstrate the capability to support potential “surge” in PRC and EAD card demand for up to 9M cards during the initial period of performance to support possible future immigration reform initiative requirements.” You can view the proposal (
