Frank Rich (NY Times) pulls no punches and interprets.....

[Aviation Pro]

...President Obama's words clearly and precisely. The problem was not just Two Shoes and Shitstain Shoots-Guy-In-Face but also us.

Link here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/opinion/25rich.html?p...

No Time for Poetry

By FRANK RICH

PRESIDENT Obama did not offer his patented poetry in his Inaugural Address. He did not add to his cache of quotations in Bartlett’s. He did not recreate J.F.K.’s inaugural, or Lincoln’s second, or F.D.R.’s first. The great orator was mainly at his best when taking shots at Bush and Cheney, who, in black hat and wheelchair, looked like the misbegotten spawn of the evil Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the Wicked Witch of the West.

Such was the judgment of many Washington drama critics. But there’s a reason that this speech was austere, not pretty. Form followed content. Obama wasn’t just rebuking the outgoing administration. He was delicately but unmistakably calling out the rest of us who went along for the ride as America swerved into the dangerous place we find ourselves now.

Feckless as it was for Bush to ask Americans to go shopping after 9/11, we all too enthusiastically followed his lead, whether we were wealthy, working-class or in between. We spent a decade feasting on easy money, don’t-pay-as-you-go consumerism and a metastasizing celebrity culture. We did so while a supposedly cost-free, off-the-books war, usually out of sight and out of mind, helped break the bank along with our nation’s spirit and reputation.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Speak for yourself Frank

I've always been thrifty, and have found myself being more so since the dawn of the 21st Century. Paid off and cut up credit cards years ago, bought used when I could.

[Aviation Pro]

3. So have I, but we are in the minority.....

....as for the rest of the country, they used their houses like ATM machines and bought "things" like his and her choppers, which I saw for six straight years during Bike Week.

The wild drunken spree is over and the vast majority are left with the debt-induced hangover.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

13. Personally, I know of exactly one person who did this

He was my former boss. His workers didn't do that--I still recall when a co-worker paid the last mortgage payment on his house and declared "never again" would he go into debt. He didn't even have a debit card, much less a credit card. Maybe I live in a pocket of the country that doesn't act like the rest of the USA.

[salguine]

5. So maybe you ARE thrifty and fiscally responsible. But he isn't talking about you,

specifically, or individuals. he's speaking of Americans collectively. And, in that regard, he's absolutely right.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

12. In other words,

my life and my actions aren't worth jacksh*t. Why should I even try, then? The bad guys will always win, the little guys will always be screwed, and it doesn't matter one whit.

[Captain Hilts]

8. He was a 2000 Bush enabler. nt

[gaspee]

11. Same here

And while those sycophants in the media were kissing Bush ass, lots of od liberals, when liberal was a dirty word, were out protesting that travesty of a war.

There were a lot of us who never fell for the cretin's bullshit. We just didn't have columns in the NYT.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Sadly, he is right about the majority of Americans...

[navarth]

4. Leave us not forget the words of the great Mencken:

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

and Teddy Roosevelt:

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life."

[Faygo Kid]

6. A little overbroad in the collective "we." Families bankrupted by health care costs, jobs lost . .

"We" are not a single entity. For every Merrill Lynch exec who remodels his office to the tune of $1.2 million while laying off thousands, and for every Bush Pioneer or Ranger or Blackwater war profiteer, there are thousands, millions choosing between medication and food, or unable to heat their homes, or who have lost their pensions, or their jobs, or their homes. For every article that said that Americans supported the Iraq War, there were millions of us who marched, and ended up buried on the bottom of page 17A by a media that cannot escape the shame of their complicity. Yes, the American people were duped. But the far greater sin rests on those who duped them, and continue to dupe them, and to tear down this country to line their own pockets (hello, Rush).

Big fan of Frank. But this one is a bit overbroad. Or overboard. I do appreciate his anger, though. It's not misplaced.

[Hubert Flottz]

7. I agree with you 100%

The media is as much to blame as their neocon masters.

[glowing]

9. On the other hand, many of us cannot afford to give anymore.. Anymore in my home

would mean loss of home or car or health ins. or food... I've never had enough to live high on any hog.

[Number23]

10. Oh no...

"We have not remotely seen the bottom of this economy, and no one has a silver bullet to arrest the plunge, the hyped brains in the new White House included."