{"id":2264,"date":"2010-08-11T15:15:56","date_gmt":"2010-08-11T19:15:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nicholsclan.com\/tinblog\/?p=2264"},"modified":"2010-08-17T22:22:51","modified_gmt":"2010-08-18T02:22:51","slug":"proving-the-negative-bush-v-obama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timscogitorium.com\/tinblog\/2010\/08\/proving-the-negative-bush-v-obama.html","title":{"rendered":"Proving the negative: Bush v. Obama"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Obama is desperately trying to convince the public his policies prevented a looming depression that would have devastated\u00a0 our economy.\u00a0 This is more than an uphill battle because as everyone is saying, you just can’t prove a negative.\u00a0 That is, you have no way to show what would have happened if you hadn’t done what you did.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday’s episode of Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Olbermann offered a special comment on a different topic which contained an interesting insight.\u00a0 President Bush had great success at proving the negative case that his policies prevented another terrorist attack (clip showing this point below).\u00a0 Now Olbermann went on to blame others for this (full video available here<\/a>), but there is a more interesting point to be gleaned.<\/p>\n

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Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

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\nIgnoring the questions of whether Obama actually prevented a depression and whether Bush actually prevented another terrorist attack, let’s examine only the public perception.\u00a0 The simple fact is, there were no more significant domestic terror incidents while Bush was proving his negative.\u00a0 Consider instead what would have happened had there continued to be one or two attacks each year, resulting in hundreds of deaths each.\u00a0 It may well have been that without the Bush policies those attacks would have numbered a dozen a year, but it wouldn’t have mattered.\u00a0 He never would have sold his story.\u00a0 He likely never would have gotten reelected.<\/p>\n

This is the reason Obama fails to prove his negative on the economy.\u00a0 Had we bounced in 3 months back to 2007 levels of unemployment and the Dow hit 14,000 again, then he could sell his success story.\u00a0 But while he may well have prevented devastation, he did not keep us from suffering.\u00a0 And as long as the pain continues,the public will not accept his proof.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Obama is desperately trying to convince the public his policies prevented a looming depression that would have devastated\u00a0 our<\/p>\n

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