Six Months and He's Already a Failure?

I spend a fair amount of time listening to right wing radio commentators. Let's face it, that's the only kind of radio commentators there are.
During the dark days of Bush II, mostly they just worried about checking under their beds for terrorists and waxing philosophic about Ronald Reagan. Never mind that the man was already in the early stages of Altzheimers while still in office, he was a god. (Not the God, mind you, that would be blasphemy.)
Now, all of a sudden, we have a president that believes that government for the people is just as important as government of the people and he's a socialist with some kind of evil agenda to drive our country to ruin.
They never try to explain why someone would want to drive our country to ruin, but that's their claim.
Personally, I don't think calling someone a socialist is really such a bad thing. But we all know how imporant labels can become in politics. Why do you think liberals started referring to themselves as "progressives"? Maybe President Obama should task someone in the White House with coming up with another word for socialist. Maybe they should resurrect "populist" or "egalitarian".
Glenn Beck is calling for an armed revolution against Obama's government. He whines ad nauseum about the second amendment and how "they" want to take our guns away.
He also rants a lot about Obama's economic policies, about how, in a free market society, failing businesses should be allowed to fail. It worked for Walmart, why not America, right?
The problem is that, for the half century leading up to the Great Depression, there was a recession about every ten years. And no president in office when they happened did anything about it. And each one got a little worse, until the economy totally collapsed in 1929. It took ten years and a world war to bring us back.
When President Obama first started rolling out his economic recovery plan, he stated very clearly, several times, that it would be a slow, painful process. He said, more than once, that there would be ups and downs. It could be two, three, or even more years before real recovery was felt.
Now, barely six months into the process, the right wing media has declared him a failure.
Unemployment is higher than predicted. This must mean that the plan isn't working. Let's cut every government program except homeland security and ICE. Oh yeah, and the military.
President Obama and several of his staff stated very clearly that, in economic times like these, unemployment is usually the last indicator to show improvement. The right chose not to hear that.
Never mind that the stock market has stabilized and showed some very modest recovery.
Never mind that the banks that received bailout money have started repaying right on time.
Never mind that the housing markets are showing some small signs of improvement. (The foreclosure crisis isn't over. There are still some painful months before that problem subsides.)
I'm not saying that Obama is the be-all, end-all in this economic crisis. I'm just saying that things are going pretty much as he said they would. He said things would be hard. They are.
He said things would take time. They have, and they are.
He said things would go up, and things would go down. They have.
The right wing media has started saying that you can't really blame the democrats or republicans for the recession. Everyone is to blame.
Really?
When President Clinton left office, there was actually a huge government surplus. Our country was at peace, North Korea was being monitored and all of its nuclear material was accounted for.
After eight years of Bush II (and a republican-controlled Congress), our government had racked up nearly 2 trillion dollars in debt, we were at war in 2 countries (at least one of which was totaly avoidable). North Korea was openly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, and we were in a terrible recession.
I'll say it, if the guys on the right won't: this entire economic mess is the republicans' fault.
President Obama has said it will take two to three years to see any real recovery. Let's give him at least that long before declaring his plan a failure.