Time Magazine senior correspondent Michael Grunwald on Monday lamented the fact that Barack Obama, "a paragon of fiscal responsibility compared to [George W.] Bush," doesn't get accolades for all his successes.
Grunwald's piece, entitled, "The Counterfactual President: Obama Averted Disasters, but Getting Credit Is the Hard Part," sarcastically compared President Obama's record on terrorism with Bush: "Apparently there needs to be a spectacular terrorist attack on U.S. soil during your presidency before you can get credit for preventing another one."
The overall thrust of the article was explaining why, despite all these accomplishments, Obama's actions have not been properly heralded.
At one point, Grunwald touted Obama's economic record, fawning, "He's been a paragon of fiscal responsibility compared with Bush, but he's still blamed for the megadeficits primarily created by Bush's tax cuts and the Great Recession." (Hat tip to the MRC's Kevin Eder for noticing the story.)
It's hard to square that with $9.5 trillions deficits and a CBO prediction that "national debt under Obama's proposals would double by 2021."
He also added more to the debt in 19 months than all Presidents from Washington through Reagan.
With regard to Libya, Grunwald argued that the President should be credited with preventing an atrocity in that country: "It's hard to get credit for avoiding a disaster when it's impossible to prove the disaster would have happened without you." Of course, the Time journalist seemed to accept this idea completely.
Time.com labeld Grunwald's piece opinion, but the reporter has covered straight news for outlets such as the Washington Post, in addition to Time.
