It's all Obama's fault even when it's not

Thomas Jefferson said, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will be." We're paying the price for not taking these words to heart. Politicians and pundits alike take it on faith that Americans are largely uninformed. That's how the president can be (unhelpfully) blamed for all that ails us. It was true for Bush, and it's true for Obama. Today's Republican meme is that President Obama's policies are weakening the economy. The facts indicate otherwise. David Frum notes there has been no surge in federal regulation (which strangles capitalism, conservatives argue). "Obama's only tax increases -- those contained in the Affordable Care Act - do not go into effect until 2014. Personal income tax rates and corporate tax rates are no higher today than they have been for the past decade. The payroll tax has actually been cut by 2 points. Total federal tax collections have dropped by 4 points of GDP since 2007, the lowest rate since the Truman administration. If so minded, you could describe Barack Obama as the biggest tax cutter in American history." Unfortunately, as the Washington Monthly concludes, this level of analysis is moot: "For many Americans, Obama is the president, the president is supposed to be powerful, and conditions are poor. Ergo, blame the guy in the Oval Office, whether it makes sense or not." The scariest part is that the citizenry, in its ignorance, could conceivably replace Obama with the fools who drove them into the economic ditch in the first place. Then again, such an outcome would prove H. L. Mencken's theory about democracy: "The common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."