Wasn't better when we were in control how? We were not selling out our allies or performing certain acts of an intimate nature with our enemies. In addition it is the Democrats that caused Freddy and Fannie to fail if you don't believe me look it up.

I prefer to just ignore what I perceive as the nutcases on either side. For the most part, allegations of racism are BS, and in the cases where they aren't, it's ether very obvious or not worth muddying useful debate by bringing it up.

Rick, I'd like to see what you're calling "selling out our allies" or whatever it is you're talking about with our enemies. If you're talking about us backing out of the long range missile defense:
* long range missile defense is unproven
* no one in the area has long range missiles!
* they do have medium range missiles, as demonstrated by their recent test
* if you have a problem with us backing out of stupid deals, what about Bush and the World Court?

(I don't think being in the World Court was a stupid deal, but I presume you do.)

I agree that Democratic efforts to give credit to lower income home purchasers contributed to the economic meltdown. However, it's important that low income people have places to live, and any government supported initiative in that direction is vehemently opposed by the Republicans. That's not a defense of what the Dems did, but we do need to find some solution.

Of course, repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act (mostly a Republican action) contributed as well, in addition to a general conservative attitude that the market will regulate itself without any pesky government involvement.

I'd say that trying to reform health care and protect against actual threats rather than cartoon threats is a mite better than ignoring Al Qaeda threats (in direct opposition to advice by Dick Clark) until an attack happens, then killing 100,000 people in a war with a country that was no threat (said war sold based on lies about the evidence), then incarcerating hundreds of people in Guantanamo with a brand-new invented status and no due process either as criminals or as POWs.

When Scott said "no better", I think he was referring to the petty lies people told about the other side to try to win support without reference to any serious arguments, and on that I agree. Lunatics, idiots and trolls on each side are as bad as the other.

(I certainly don't think anyone on this page so far falls into the loony/idiot/troll category, but most of the commenters on the site Scott links seemed to.)

However, Glass-Steagal, in my readings, is often considered to have been directly responsible for most of the economic crises from 1963-1988. The artificial firewall was seen by a PREVIOUS set of progressives to be just what the Dr. ordered, when it fact it meant people with common sense were legally prevented from talking to each other.

In my own opinion, the repeal of Glass-Steagal is to the debacles of Fannie and Freddie what a freshly-cleaned porta-pottie is to two dozen chicken coops on a hot August day. But that's just me.

"Ignoring until an attack happens" sounds vaguely, well... never mind. Put a different spin on it... the press has been apologizing for Obama by blaming the previous administration for, well, basically everything. I nod my head, but can't help but notice ALL of my left and center-left friends never once, NOT ONCE, gave equal consideration and forgiveness to the administration which came before Obama's for epic disasters which happened before they'd even been in office for a year. But I digress...

As far as the World Court goes, well I can't speak for Rick, but I can say that in my own opinion putting any part of our sovereignty in the hands of people who's parents surrendered to an odious Austrian and then rather gleefully handed over every Jew they could get their hands on would be, shall we say, ill-advised?

I'm interested to hear how Glass-Steagal was responsible for economic crises. My understanding is that it essentially restricted investment banks from also being commercial banks, which sounds eminently sensible, since it keeps my invested money from being risked on whatever the latest financial instrument is.

What is the counterargument for my claim that Bush ignored warnings about Al Qaeda until the attack?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_A._Clarke#Early_warnings_about_Al-Qaeda_threat

I agree that Bush got a bum rap for a few things *very* early in his career, although I don't really see how any of the things people are "blaming" the previous administration for could possibly be Obama's fault - they all were in full swing at least 6 months before he took office!

Regarding backing out of the World Court versus canceling our long range missile deal, I stand by my assessment. We "unsigned" a treaty we had signed to get out of the ICC because the current president thought it was a bad deal; that was a stronger show of bad faith than for us to cancel a plan to place a long missile shield of questionable efficacy and more questionable usefulness in Czech and Poland.

BTW, your comment engine is rejecting links to my blog "blog dot bobbymartin dot name". Maybe it doesn't know about dot name TLDs?

Any move whatsoever that restricts a nation's sovereign authority is Very Bad Thing. Allowing other nations to hamstring your own for being too successful (which, considering the actions of the UN and the general sentiment of the world) is simply poor planning. If they want to get better, more competitive, more prosperous, etc., then they need to do so on their own merits - not by trying to handicap us. There's simply no need for a World Court. Mechanisms have existed for quite some time to do everything the WC wanted to do.

I'm also a bit confused by what you think us capitalists mean by regulate the market. Where have any of us said that capitalism = non-stop growth? An act is repealed that limits business and economic growth. Businesses take it to the extreme and pay for it. Oddly enough, capitalists are generally fairly smart and we learn our lessons. I don't think there's much worry about folks over-investing in the derivatives market right now. The market regulates itself by continual cycles of expansion and contraction. During the boom times all sorts of business thrive and others are created. At some point, it becomes simply unsustainable. This leads to a contraction of business and the weak ones fail. Their goods and equipment are then sold for pennies on the dollar and new business spring up in their place.