Robert Stacy McCain says it well:

Details, however, were not the Obama campaign’s strongest selling point. Rather, Obama succeeded by capitalizing on the kind of boundless Hope that prompted a Florida woman, Peggy Joseph, to her memorable declaration after a late-October campaign rally: “I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car; I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know, if I help him, he’s gonna help me.”

Such irrational expectations are inevitably followed by disillusionment. No prediction of what the next four years might bring is safer than this: The yawning gap between Hope and reality will produce a bumper crop of ex-Democrats.

This of course was pursued under Jimmy Carter's CRA as modified by the Clintons. The result of that lawsuit, and others like it, have been repreatedly identified as the proximate cause of our current financial problems.

Yep. And I am pretty sure that twinge I felt in my football knee this morning is Carter, Clinton & Obama's fault as well. Certainly no member of the GOP had a part in it.

Obama represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank,

Hmmm. An attorney representing a client. Shocking indeed.

But now that he has won the presidency and must, as the cliché goes, shift from campaigning to governing, Obama and his economic team will have to face up to a paradox that most of the media overlooked during the campaign. Namely, the Obama campaign's twin messages of bashing deregulation and embracing the Clinton years were inherently contradictory. Bill Clinton signed nearly every deregulatory measure that John McCain backed—the same measures that are now being blamed (wrongly) for helping cause the current crisis. What's more, Clinton administration officials have credited these policies for contributing to the ‘90s economic boom—the very "shared prosperity" that Obama says he wants to go back to."In 1993," the document explained, "the laws that governed America's financial service sector were antiquated and anti-competitive. The Clinton-Gore Administration fought to modernize those laws to increase competition in traditional banking, insurance, and securities industries to give consumers and small businesses more choices and lower costs."

Everything in those passages is true. All that's missing is credit to the GOP-controlled Congress elected in 1994 for passing most of the policies that led to the prosperity. But the Clinton administration, whatever its personal and policy flaws, should indeed be praised for signing and advocating this deregulation. These bipartisan financial policies, however, were the very same policies that Obama, running mate Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) and other Democrats attacked during the campaign. "Let's, first of all, understand that the biggest problem in this whole process was the deregulation of the financial system," Obama proclaimed in the second presidential debate.

Funny how few remembered this one. One wonders if that whole thing wasn't part of the driver for making Hillary Clinton a Secratary of State... so he wouldn't get reminded in a few weeks time.

Obama is finding his rhetoric is having to be toned down, altered, or just outright reversed, to mesh with reality. This adjustment is now being pushed by the left as 'proof' that Obama is in fact a centrist, not the whack-job leftist he made himself out to be. Well, first off, no. He's no centrist, because he still thinks the nonsense he offered us during the campaign is a good idea. Not unlike Vlad Posner, he refuses to let failures dictate his ideology in the larger sense. This backtracking we're seeing now is just Obama recognizing he can't do what he promised.

And think now; he's not even been sworn in, yet. Clinton at least waited until het got his hand off the Bible and onto Monica Lewisnsky, before he pulled a 180, saying he tried, but couldn't 'give us' the tax relief he'd promised...

So, you were saying about blaming Obama? Sure, he's part of the problem, even absent him running for POTUS.

I guess watching Bitsy try to blame Obama for the Bush economy will be good for laughs if nothing else.

Oh, hell... that's an easy one.
Let's take a little trip into history, courtesy of the Chicago Sun-Times.

Obama represented Calvin Roberson in a 1994 lawsuit against Citibank, charging the bank systematically denied mortgages to African-American applicants and others from minority neighborhoods

This of course was pursued under Jimmy Carter's CRA as modified by the Clintons. The result of that lawsuit, and others like it, have been repreatedly identified as the proximate cause of our current financial problems.

So now, as soon as Obama gets in, along with what is doubtless helpful tot he cause, a near super-majority of Democrats, Citigroup gets a huge bailout for the troubles that the Democrats caused in the first place, Obama among them?

What you fail to understand is that Obama has labeled the liberalism he was touting all along as impractical. He knows it won't work. He knows if we as a nation followed the prescription he gave us as candidate Obama, that President Obama would have presided over the largest disaster this nation has ever seen.... regardless of where we started, economically.

Nonsense. He knows no such thing. His solutions are still going to be liberal--injection of capital into the economy via public works projects, etc. How do you square what you just wrote with this:

2.5 million jobs
Friday, November 21, 2008 09:48pm EST /

President-elect Barack Obama today announced a bold initiative to save or create 2.5 million jobs in the next two years.

In his weekly address, President-elect Obama announced that he has directed his economic team to formulate an Economic Recovery Plan -- a two-year, nationwide initiative that will strengthen our economy and put millions of Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing our schools, and securing our clean energy future.

Thrash, thrash, thrash.

e're in the shitter bigtime, or hadn't you noticed?

Sure did.

And if Obama's adapting himself to reality, this is a bad thing in a president because? You're thrashing, dude, just thrashing.

What you fail to understand is that Obama has labeled the liberalism he was touting all along as impractical. He knows it won't work. He knows if we as a nation followed the prescription he gave us as candidate Obama, that President Obama would have presided over the largest disaster this nation has ever seen.... regardless of where we started, economically.

What amazes most is that you guys on the left still haven't figured that part out.

Are you surprised by that?

Not in the least.
Every Democrrat President in my lifetime hasn't coe up to his own hype. Why should this one be any different, particularly since this one's hype was the most whackjob leftist of all....

Funny how he's been backing off, already on his pre-election claims... to the point where he's already had to change the website to match reality.

Jesus, Bit, come back to Planet Earth and have a look around. We're in the shitter bigtime, or hadn't you noticed? (Following James -- this isn't a depression, but most of us are sure as hell depressed.) And if Obama's adapting himself to reality, this is a bad thing in a president because? You're thrashing, dude, just thrashing.

or that you're trying to sell ME on it,

I suppose you are right. They just don't make thinking caps with sufficient horsepower.

After all, you are the guy who said Palin was going to crush the Democrats :)

He's not even sworn in yet, and he's already having to lower expectations.

Are you surprised by that? After 8 years of your man Captain Bush, America looks a bit like the Titanic. Obama has to try and get her back to drydock for an overhaul. Seem to remember you doing a lot of cheer leading as GW set course for the iceberg...

or that you consider yourself smart.

the fact that you always disagree with me is pretty much proof of concept.

Bit. Go to http://www.change.gov. Put your thinking cap on first.

I don't know what I find more amusing.... that you actually bought that bilge... or that you're trying to sell ME on it, or that you consider yourself smart.

Funny how so many on the Right want to say, "See? He was lying..." when he isn't even in the White House yet.

Funny how he's been backing off, already on his pre-election claims... to the point where he's already had to change the website to match reality. He's not even sworn in yet, and he's already having to lower expectations.

Here's the thing...For all the high expectations the left had for him and expectations which, it must be said he rode to the WH on, he's already having to adjust the rhetoric to reality. And apparently, that perception is not unique.

Bit, which left are you talking about? Which REALITY?? As of right now he is doing pretty much what I expected (not in the particulars, of which I have been spectacularly wrong about) but in the generalities: he is a centrist (left of center to be sure) but he is appointing people who can get things done... no matter which side they come from. Time will tell if they get things done that he wants done (no matter how they get them done)

Funny how so many on the Right want to say, "See? He was lying..." when he isn't even in the White House yet.

As my Grandmother always said, "The proof is in the pudding..."

So all of the hope and change stuff was just him lying for an entire year?

Not at all...only extremists on both ends of the political spectrum seem to interpret "hope and change" as some wild-eyed run to the left...hope and change can also mean competency, true bipartisanship, pragmatism, moderation, and sanity...all of which have been noticeably absent from much of Washington these past 8 years...the concern trollishness of conservatives who appear to be laughing that the far left got some kind of shaft is rather amusing, but, at least for the next 2 years, if not longer, conservatives have little to no power in the legislative or executive branches, so I suppose this is how they have come to console themselves...