Buy My Booklet - Bump In Road, Warts on Lying Tongue!!

"A Conservative Capitalist Offers: Eleven Lessons and a Bonus Lesson for Raising America's Youth Born and Yet To Be Born"

By Dick Berkowitz - Non Expert

I wrote this booklet because I believe a strong country must rest on a solid family unit.Brokaw's "Greatest Generation" has morphed into "A Confused, Dependent and Compromised Generation."

I  hope this booklet will provide a guide to alter this trend.

Please Buy My Booklet - Half The Proceeds Go To "The Wounded Warrior Project!"

You can now order a .pdf version from www.brokerberko.com/book that you can download and read on your computer, or even print out if you want. 

The booklet only costs $5.99.

Also feel free to forward this to anyone on your own e mail list and encourage others to order a copy.

 

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President Pinocchio recently said about the Libyan assassinations they were simply bumps in the road.  The bumps he referred to are actually the warts on his lying tongue which his media and press sycophants continue to protect. (See 1,1a  and 1b below.)

More subterfuge as Obama seeks to postpone revealing the job impact of 'sequester' until after the election. (See 1c below.)
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Netanyahu may have bought sometime with sabotage but Iran has now responded with a challenge that could make matters even more difficult for Obama

Reports are now surfacing that Syria has moved some of its chemical stock and Obama took it upon his own to draw a red line for himself vis a vis such movement.

If this is happening, as most reports now indicate it has, Obama may have exposed his own duplicity and fecklessness.?  (See 2 below.)
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Liberal Pete DuPont find himself caught between coal miners being slammed by Obama and those protecting Obama by their assertions the election is over.. (See 3 below.)
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Clinton laid the campaign keel when he told Americans no mortal human could have done more than Obama to resurrect the economy.  On top of that Obama loves you!

What zombie voters are being told is that the patient was so sick they should ignore the fact  the physician amputated the wrong leg.  (See 4 below.)

Dick
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1)Islamic Feelings of Entitlement
By Jonathan David Carson

It has become ever more obvious that there is a deep psychological affinity between liberals and Islamofascists.  On the face of it, this affinity seems absurd: liberals champion gay rights and a so-called emancipation of women, while Islamofascists seem never quite happy unless they are stoning homosexuals or degrading women.  But the affinity is not absurd, and understanding it means understanding the colossal errors of judgment made recently by the U.S. president and secretary of state.

Governor Romney backed ungracefully into the truth when he complained about the 47 percent and all those embarrassing apologies: Democrats, and especially the president, have systematically cultivated an entitlement mentality and sought to expand it to the tipping point that ensures endless political dominance.  Muslims feel entitled, too, and that is why appeasement does not work. 

It's not just that Muslims prefer strong horses to weak ones, as Osama bin Laden put it.  They feel entitled to the double standards that so irk us, and they do not feel the least gratitude when we apologize for insults to Mohammed or send them money to calm them down.  On the contrary, our apologies and our money merely feed their sense of entitlement.

To apologize or otherwise show respect to Islamists is like giving a welfare recipient more money.  The money makes the recipient feel more entitled, not less.  The more money we give, the less gratitude we receive.  True charity should not look for gratitude anyway.

It is rare for anyone to show less understanding of other people than the president and secretary of state showed on that ad on Pakistan television.  Our delusional, practically imbecilic leaders said that the United States government did not have anything to do with the notorious video and seemed to think that saying so would somehow mollify the enraged masses.  They say this over and over again, and the masses just become more and more enraged. 

Apparently, our powerful imbeciles have not heard a word the Islamofascists are saying.  They are not saying that the United States government made the video; they would simply prefer that the United States government should cut the filmmakers into little pieces and feed them to unclean beasts.  So the imbeciles say something they think will please the Islamofascists, but the Islamofascists hear what they are saying as a refusal of their demands, not as sympathy for their injuries.  The Islamofascists take what the imbeciles are saying as an insult: we pretend to be sympathetic, but we don't do what they want. 

The Islamofascists hear the imbeciles say that the video is vile and disgusting, and the Islamofascists take that as confirmation that the imbeciles are shirking their duty to punish the filmmakers.  The apology is a self-indictment in the eyes of the Islamofascists.  So the president goes on and on apologizing -- that is, self-indicting -- and the hatred of the Muslim world goes on and on in step.

The same thing has bedeviled American policy on the Palestinians for years.  We say that we want to be an "honest broker" between Palestinians and Israelis, but until we elect a monster to the presidency, Palestinians will see Americans as people who love Jews and merely pretend to care about Palestinians.  They hate us more for pretending that we like them than they would if we just said that we can never respect people who hate Jews so much that they will blow themselves up if it means killing a Jew.  Same for people who cheer when passenger jets fly into our skyscrapers.

No serious person could believe that Hillary Clinton is truly offended by the Innocence of Muslims video.  Obama may be a different story, but surely the liberal establishment is not offended when Mohammed is called a vicious man and a pedophile.  They know quite well that he was both.  They are upset because they see insanely enraged Muslims and identify with their insane rage.

A woman once became furiously angry at me because I stepped back so that she could get into a bus ahead of me.

It's hard to see a difference between the insane rage liberals show at the most innocuous statements or situations and the insane rage of  Muslims who will stand in tear-gassed streets to throw rocks because one in ten zillion videos is said to have maligned Mohammed.  We all saw Madonna praise Obama for being a Muslim and demand that we vote for him because he champions same-sex marriage.  You will never convince me that they are not all nuts, and pretty much the same nut: Madonna, Obama, Clinton, and the Libyans who flew the black flag of al-Qaeda over our embassy.

1a)What did the White House know about Libya, and when?By Terence P. Jeffrey

Upon hearing there had been an attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans had been killed there and that this murderous assault had been carried out on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a rational mind might be tempted to conclude that this had been a premeditated act of terror.

The Obama White House and State Department resisted the temptation.

On Sept. 12, the day after the attack, White House press secretary Jay Carney was asked whether "the attack in Benghazi was planned and premeditated." "It's too early for us to make that judgment," Carney said.

The next day, Sept. 13, State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland subtly pointed to a YouTube video as possibly creating a motivation for the attack. Asked "whether the Benghazi attack was purely spontaneous or was premeditated by militants," Nuland replied, "[W]e are very cautious about drawing any conclusions with regard to who the perpetrators were, what their motivations were, whether it was premeditated, whether they had any external contacts, whether there was any link, until we have a chance to investigate along with the Libyans ... [O]bviously, there are plenty of people around the region citing this disgusting video as something that has been motivating."

A Sept. 14 Associated Press story described the video in question as 14 minutes of clips from "the amateurish anti-Islam film 'Innocence of Muslims,' " which "depict the prophet Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a madman in an overtly mocking way." The video had been posted on YouTube.

Carney brought up the video at the Sept. 14 White House press briefing. The attacks, he said, were "in response not to United States policy, not to, obviously, the administration, not to the American people. It is in response to a video, a film that we have judged to be reprehensible and disgusting ... This is in response to a video that is offensive and -- to Muslims."

A reporter asked Carney: "At Benghazi?"

"We certainly don't know, we don't know otherwise," said Carney. "You know, we have no information to suggest that it was a preplanned attack. The unrest we've seen around the region has been in reaction to a video that Muslims, many Muslims, find offensive. And while the violence is reprehensible and unjustified, it is not a reaction to the 9/11 anniversary that we know of or to U.S. policy."

The same day Carney said these things, a CNN correspondent in Benghazi "gained access to the mission, which was, you know, had been evacuated. And found while she was there a journal," CNN Managing Editor Mark Whitaker explained 10 days later on his network. "And, of course, she didn't know what it was. But then when she looked at it, it became clear that it was writings from Ambassador Stevens."

Out of deference to Stevens' family, CNN did not initially reveal it had discovered the journal. But based on that document and other sources -- "including one," CNN's Anderson Cooper reported Monday, "who had a detailed conversation with the ambassador, which confirmed much of what we felt important in the journal" -- CNN reported: "A source familiar with Ambassador Stevens' thinking says that in the months before his death, he talked about being worried about what he called the never-ending security threats specifically in Benghazi. The source telling us that the ambassador specifically mentioned the rise in Islamic extremism, the growing al-Qaeda presence in Libya, and said he was on an al-Qaeda hit list."

On Sunday, CNN's Candy Crowley asked House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers if there was "any protest at all going on" at the Benghazi consulate at the time of the attack.

"I have seen no information that shows that there was a protest going on as you have seen around any other embassy at the time," said Rogers. "It was clearly designed to be an attack."

What did our government know and when? What did our government not know and why? These are unfortunate and familiar questions that Congress must investigate and answer now.

Examiner Columnist Terence P. Jeffrey, the editor in chief of CNSNews.com, is syndicated by Creators.

1b)Prez weaves a web of lies

By Michael Graham

A week after U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed in an attack on the consulate in Benghazi, President Barack Obama sent U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice out to tell us, “What happened initially was that it was a spontaneous reaction . . . as a consequence of the video, that people gathered outside the embassy and then it grew very violent.”

Actually, Mr. President . . . no. There was no “spontaneous reaction.” It was a terrorist attack, and nothing but a terrorist attack.

For two weeks, Obama’s spokesman told us that this deadly attack was just a movie review gone wrong. As Jay Carney said on Sept. 18, “We saw no evidence to back up claims by others that this was a preplanned or premeditated attack.”

Actually, Mr. President . . . no. As of this writing, no FBI agent has even arrived in Benghazi. CNN reports the “crime scene” has yet to even be secured.

And on Tuesday, Mr. President, you gave a speech at the United Nations about the violence against America, in which you mentioned YouTube a half-dozen times, but didn’t use the word “terrorist” or “terrorism” once.

Actually, Mr. President . . . that’s just pathetic.

Karl Rove just said “Mr. Obama has taken ordinary political differences beyond anything we’ve seen.”

I’m with Rove. I’ve seen “spin,” I’ve seen parsing “the definition of ‘is,’ ” but I’ve never seen anything like this avalanche of outright lies.

An Obama TV ad now claims “chances are you pay a higher tax rate than Mitt Romney.”

Actually, Mr. President . . . no.

Romney’s tax rate is a matter of record: 14.1 percent, well above the 9.1 percent effective rate of the average American. How do I know Romney’s rate? Because it’s reported — in the ad!

Given that Romney is in the top 20 percent of taxpayers, there’s an 80 percent chance you don’t pay as high a rate as he does. This isn’t “spin” or a math loophole. It’s yet another lie.

A politician who lacks the courage to keep his word is old news. What makes Obama different is that you can’t trust the words coming out of his mouth right now.

What happened in Ben-ghazi happened. What Obama told us about it, just 48 hours ago, was simply not true.

And he wants us to trust him with four more years?

Actually, Mr. President . . .

Michael Graham hosts an afternoon drive-time talk show on 96.9 WTKK.

1c)White House Moves To Head Off Sequester Layoffs

Employee Compensation Costs, Attorneys Fees Could be Treated as 'Allowable Costs'

By Sara Sorcher

The White House moved to prevent defense and other government contractors from issuing mass layoff notices in anticipation of sequestration, even going so far to say that the contracting agencies would cover any potential litigation costs or employee compensation costs that could follow.

Some defense companies—including Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems and EADS North America—have said they expect to send notices to their employees 60 days before sequestration takes effect to comply with the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires companies to give advance warning to workers deemed reasonably likely to lose their jobs. Companies appeared undeterred by a July 30 guidance from the Labor Department, which said issuing such notices would be inappropriate, due to the possibility that sequestration may be averted. The Labor Department also said companies do not have enough information about how the cuts might be implemented to determine which workers or specific programs could be affected should Congress fail to reach a compromise to reduce the deficit, triggering $1.2 trillion in spending cuts, half from defense, half non-defense. For 2013, that would amount to $109 billion in spending cuts. 

So the Office of Management and Budget went a step further in guidance issued late Friday afternoon. If an agency terminates or modifies a contract, and the contractor must close a plant or lay off workers en masse, the company could treat employee compensation costs for WARN Act liability, attorneys’ fees and other litigation costs as allowable costs to be covered by the contracting agency—so long as the contractor has followed a course of action consistent with the Labor Department’s guidance. The legal fees would be covered regardless of the outcome of the litigation, according to the OMB guidance issued by Daniel Werfel, controller of the Office of Federal Financial Management, and Joseph Jordan, the Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy. 

"This guidance does not alter existing rights, responsibilities, obligations, or limitations under individual contract provisions or the governing cost principles set forth in the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and other applicable law," said the guidance addressed to the chief financial officers and senior procurement executives of departments and agencies. "Thus, agencies may treat as allowable other costs potentially associated with sequestration, including WARN Act-related costs arising under circumstances not specified in this guidance, based on the usual cost principles of allocability, allowability, and reasonableness as set forth in the FAR."

Democrats, including House Armed Services Committee ranking member Adam Smith, D-Wash., andSenate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, have also said there is no reason to needlessly alarm hundreds of thousands of workers—but many Republicans, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have said that they hoped constituent concern resulting from the notices would spur compromise on Capitol Hill

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2) Fordo sabotage enabled Netanyahu to move Iran red line to spring 2013

The sabotage of the Fordo uranium enrichment facility’s power lines on Aug. 17 gave Israel Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu extra leeway to move his original red line for Iran from late September 2012 – now – to the spring or early summer of 2013. The disruption of the underground enrichment plant's power supply caused several of the advanced IR-1 and IR-4 centrifuges producing the 20-percent grade uranium to burst into flames. Work was temporarily halted and the accumulation of 240 kilos for Iran’s first nuclear bomb slowed down by at least six months, intelligence sources report.

Hence Netanyahu’s new red line timeline of “late spring, early summer” - before which preventive action is imperative - in his speech to the UN General Assembly Thursday, Sept. 27.

Military sources report that the advantage gained is already proving short-lived. Iran has pounced back fast with two aggressive counter-moves on Israel’s doorstep:

1. Thousands of elite Al Qods Brigades officers and men are being airlifted into Lebanon and Syria and deployed opposite Israeli borders.

2. Shortly before the Israeli Prime Minister rose to speak in New York, Syrian President Bashar Assad again removed chemical weapons out of storage. Some were almost certainly passed to the incoming Iranian units. The weapons’ movements were accounted for as a precaution for “greater security,” but in practice they will be ready for use against Israel when the order is handed down from Tehran.

Friday, Sept. 28, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was specifically asked by a reporter if it was believed that “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards or Syrian rebels had been able to get possession of any of the chemical weapons” which the secretary had just disclosed were on the move. He left the door open, saying only that he had “no firm information to confirm this.” That sort of question never comes out of thin air.

It was also the second time in three weeks that the defense secretary mentioned the movements of Syrian chemical weapons out of storage. This time, he said, ‘‘There has been intelligence that there have been some moves that have taken place. Where exactly that’s taken place, we don’t know.” But he did not rule out the possibility that they were being made ready for use.

This non-denial tied in closely with the words heard that day from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:  “Iran has left no doubt that it will do whatever it takes to protect the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Tehran’s staunch ally,” she said.

Syrian chemical weapons movements out of storage, the presence of crack Iranian fighting units on Israel’s borders and Tehran’s determination to keep Assad in power “whatever it takes” hung in menacing silence over Netanyahu’s powerful cartoon presentation of the Iranian nuclear peril.

Already on Sept. 16, the Revolutionary Guards chief Gen. Ali Jafary announced publicly that al Qods Brigades personnel had landed not only in Syria but also Lebanon. The chemical weapons may therefore have already reached Hizballah or be on their way there unbeknownst to US intelligence.

Both Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have repeatedly stated that the transfer of chemical weapons to Hizballah would necessitate Israeli military action.

The IDF’s large-scale military call-up and firing exercise on the Golan of Sept. 19 failed to deter the Iranian military buildup opposite Israeli northern borders in Syria and Lebanon. The Iranian airlift continues and US intelligence has not denied that some al Qods arrivals may now be armed with chemical weapons.
The Iranian threat to Israel is therefore far from static; it is gaining substance and menace, keeping two IDF divisions on call in northern Israel after the exercise was over.

Netanyahu’s red line for preventing Iran achieving a 240-kilo enriched uranium stockpile does not cover an Iranian preemptive attack on the Jewish state before then – as threatened explicitly by the Iranian missiles Corps chief Brig. Gen. Amir Ali Hajizade on Sept. 24.

Neither had Israeli officials anything to say about the Hamas leaders’ trips to Beirut and Tehranthis month to sign military accords with the Revolutionary Guards and Hizballah pledging the Palestinian extremists’ participation in an attack on Israel.

The red line on the cartoon bomb which Netanyahu held up so effectively at the UN Thursday covered only one segment of the peril Tehran poses for the Jewish state. A more immediate danger lurks in the north.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------3)The Election Isn't Over

Only fools and partisans think Obama has it locked up.

By PETE DU PONT

Things are changing in America, from economics to politics, to elections. The public sees a supposed economic recovery that seems quite short on job creation, as employment and underemployment remain high. They see higher taxes coming: ObamaCare's new 3.8% tax on investment income, plus the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, which will mean higher taxes on all income, including dividends and capital gains.On top of all that, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office now says nearly six million Americans will face a tax penalty of about $1,200 under ObamaCare for not getting insurance, and that will take an additional $6.9 billion from the public to the government in 2016. The national debt exceeds $16 trillion and is expected to keep rising.

All this creates a sense of uneasiness and instability in the coming presidential election. The Republican rank and file preferred a strong conservative as their presidential candidate, but the Washington establishment always seemed to want a moderate—someone more like George H.W. Bush, Bob Dole or John McCain—as a "safe choice." A 2012 candidate in the latter category probably would lead to electoral disaster. Fortunately, with Mitt Romney the Republicans have a candidate in the middle. The Democrats, of course, went with their incumbent even though he continues to score poorly on job approval and his signature first-term accomplishments are unpopular with the electorate.

In spite of what some of the pundits are saying, this election is not over, and it is very difficult now to be sure who will win the race on Nov. 6. To begin with, the polls seem to show a good bit of volatility. According to Rasmussen Reports, which unlike many other analysts has tracked likely voters instead of registered ones, has gone from Mr. Obama up by two in August, to up by five in early September to a tie in late September. Gallup was plus-one for Mr. Romney in mid-August, plus-seven for Mr. Obama in early September, and plus-three for Mr. Obama in mid-September. In short, each candidate is holding 45% to 47% of the votes with roughly 6% to 10% undecided.

Of course elections are won in the Electoral College, where becoming president requires reaching at least 270 votes. According to the latest RealClearPolitics.com summary, at the moment Mr. Obama seems to have a base of 179 and Mr. Romney of 150. That leaves Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia for the major battles, although Ohio and Pennsylvania currently lean toward Obama.

We know that events can change elections dramatically, and we do not yet know what the reaction of voters will be to the killing of the American ambassador and three other government employees in Libya and the attacking of our embassies. Or to the continuing increase in gas prices. We will know more in early November, but perhaps not until then.

Finally, some thoughts on the outcome of the election based on models from professors at American University (Allan Lichtman) and the University of Colorado (Kenneth Bickers and Michael Berry). According to Kevin Schoelzel, writing in the Vanderbilt Political Review, both models have correctly predicted presidential election outcomes since 1984. They can't both do so this time: Mr. Lichtman has picked Obama to win, and Messrs. Bickers and Berry have picked Romney.

Mr. Lichtman has identified 13 key factors—true-or-false tests—that will make the outcome clear. According to Mr. Schoelzel, if the president "escapes with less than five falsees, he is able to hold onto the office," but not if he has six or more. So Mr. Lichtman has concluded that Obama will win the election. Messrs. Bickers and Berry look at the economic data in all 50 states and used that to predict the Electoral College outcome. Their model pointed to the Romney win in August, and they are expected to issue an updated projection soon.

And of course the debates will no doubt play a large role because the election is close. They will be used by many voters to evaluate Mr. Romney and decide whether they see him as presidential, a hurdle faced by every challenger.

The polls are volatile and close, and neither candidate has a lock on the Electoral College math. There is still time for the outside events to impact the race, the models with the best track record are split on who the winner will be, and the all-important debates are yet to come. To say that this race can go either way is an understatement, and those who say that the race is over are either partisan or foolish, or both.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------4As Good As It Gets?

Growth of 1.7% isn't what Team Obama promised four years ago.

Bob Schieffer: "The fact is, unemployment is up. It is higher than when [President Obama] came to office, the economy is still in the dump. Some people say that is reason enough to make a change."

Bill Clinton: "It is if you believe that we could have been fully healed in four years. I don't know a single serious economist who believes that as much damage as we had could have been healed."

CBS's "Face the Nation," September 23, 2012

Well, let's see. We can think of several serious people who said we could heal the economy in four years. There's Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Christina Romer, Jared Bernstein, Mark Zandi, and, most importantly, President Obama himself.

Mr. Obama told Americans in 2009 that if he did not turn around the economy in three years his Presidency would be "a one-term proposition." Joe Biden said three years ago that the $830 billion economic stimulus was working beyond his "wildest dreams" and he famously promised several months after the Obama stimulus was enacted that Americans would enjoy a "summer of recovery." That was more than three years ago.

In early 2009 soon-to-be White House economists Ms. Romer and Mr. Bernstein promised Congress that the stimulus would hold the unemployment rate below 7% and that by now it would be 5.6%. Instead the rate is 8.1%. The latest Census Bureau report says there are nearly seven million fewer full-time, year-round workers today than in 2007. The labor participation rate is the lowest since 1981.

So it has gone with nearly every prediction the President has made about where the economy would be today. Mr. Obama promised that the deficit would be cut in half in four years, but the fiscal 2012 deficit (estimated to be above $1 trillion) will be twice the 2008 deficit ($458 billion).

Mr. Obama said that his health-care plan would "cut the cost of a typical family's premium by up to $2,500 a year," but premiums for employer-sponsored family coverage have gone up $2,370 since 2009, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

He said that the linchpin for a growing economy would be renewable energy investment, and he promised to "create five million new jobs in solar, wind, geothermal" energy. Mr. Obama did invest some $9 billion in green energy, but his job estimate was off by at least a factor of 10 and today many solar and wind industry firms are fighting bankruptcy. The growth in domestic U.S. energy production that he now takes credit for has come almost entirely from the fossil fuels his Administration has done so much to obstruct.

There's nothing unusual about candidates making grandiose promises that don't come true. And it's a White House tradition to blame one's predecessor when things don't get better. (Usually these Presidents end up one-termers.)

The bad faith wasn't then. It's now. Mr. Obama really believed that government spending would unleash a robust recovery in employment and housing—an "economy built to last." Now that this hasn't happened and with the Congressional Budget Office predicting a possible recession for 2013, Team Obama claims these woeful results were the best that could have been expected.

The problem with this line is that every President who has inherited a recession in modern times has done better. (See nearby table.) Under Mr. Obama, measured on the basis of jobs, GDP growth and incomes, this has been by far the meekest recovery from the past 10 recessions.

When George W. Bush was elected, he inherited a mild recession from Mr. Clinton amid the bursting of the dot-com bubble, some $7 trillion of wealth eviscerated. Nine months later came the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet by 2003 the economy was growing by more than 3% and eight million jobs were created over the next four years.

The Administration and its acolytes claim that the nature of the 2008 financial collapse was different from past recessions, and that it can take up to a decade to restore growth after such a financial crisis. Economist Michael Bordo rebuts that claim with historical economic evidence nearby.

In reality, the biggest difference between this recovery and others hasn't been the nature of the crisis, but the nature of the policy prescriptions. Mr. Obama's chief anti-recession idea was a near trillion-dollar leap of faith in the Keynesian "multiplier" effect of government spending. It was the same approach that didn't work in the 1930s, didn't work in the 1970s, didn't work in 2008, and didn't work in such other nations as Japan. It didn't work again in 2009.

Ronald Reagan also inherited an economy loaded with problems. The stock market had been flat for 12 years, inflation rates neared 14%, and mortgage rates almost 20%. The recession he endured in 1981-82 to cure inflation sent unemployment to 10.8%, higher than Mr. Obama's peak of 10%. But the business and jobs recovery by early 1983 was rapid and lasted seven years.

Reagan used tax-rate cuts, disinflationary monetary policy and deregulation to reignite growth—more or less the opposite of the Obama policy mix. Liberals tried to explain the Reagan boom that they said would never happen by arguing that there was nothing unusual about the growth spurt after such a deep recession. So why didn't that happen this time?

When campaigning to be President in 1960, John F. Kennedy denounced slow growth under Eisenhower and Nixon and said "We can do bettah." Growth was 7.2% in 1959 and 2.5% in 1960. Since the recession ended under Mr. Obama, growth has been 2.4% in 2010, 1.8% in 2011 and, after Thursday's downward revision for the second quarter, 1.7% in 2012.

Mr. Obama is running for re-election trying to convince Americans that an economy limping at less than 2% growth, 8% unemployment, real incomes down 5.7% since the recovery began, and deficits of more than $1 trillion is the best we could achieve. We liked it better when he stood for hope and change.