Another explanation for why Leftist LUNCs occur is the remarkable aversion of liberals to
accountability and their penchant to shift blame.
In certain respects, assigning blame is a way of assigning power. It indicates who had the power to create political problems, and also who may have the power to solve political problems. Blame-shifting, then, is an act of dis-empowerment. By refusing to accept responsibility for the part one has played in creating political problems, and by shifting the blame to others, one may be shifting the power to solve the problems to those who may not be in the best position to do so, and one is thereby rendered impotent and bent towards continuing and/or repeating the problems, and thus one becomes a part of the problems rather than the solutions.
While blame-shifting is not the sole domain of the Left (in politics it seems to be a national past-time), in recent years they have elevated blame-shifting in politics to whole new levels. The Left seems to have blamed the Right for most everything that has gone wrong in government, though they have been quick to take credit for what little has gone right (see, for example HERE and HERE). Dennis Miller recently quipped, "Liberals want to share everything but blame." (Facebook post, 7/21/2013)
Even after four years into the Obama presidency, former president Bush is still being faulted by liberals for a number of things that happening under Obama's watch. The media is rife with examples (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE, etc.). It has gotten so bad that it has recently become the brunt of Obama's own jokes. (See HERE) There is also a website sardonically dedicated to the proposition that "Bush is to blame for everything." (See HERE) It seems as though Bush never left office, and as though Obama hasn't really governed during his first term--which raises serious questions as to why Obama was elected to begin with, and re-elected, particularly given all his failed promises to fix things (questions which Rush Limbaugh answers with his Limbaugh Theorum).
Consequently, as explained, blame-shifting by liberals has shifted problem-solving powers away from Obama--rendering him perceptually impotent, and towards Bush, who is no longer in a position to utilize those powers or fix things, and so it isn't surprising that Leftist LUNCs have occurred during Obama's administration, and seem poised to continue to occur and reoccur as long as he is in office.
There is no better example of this than the floundering U.S. economy. As indicated in the introduction to Obamanamics--Trickle-Up Poverty, it is only fair to note that prior
to Obama taking office, the housing bubble had burst, major financial
institutions were going belly-up, other industries were on the verge of
collapse, and the economy had slipped into what some considered the
worst recession since the Great Depression. (See HERE and HERE and HERE) So, it is not as though blaming Bush and conservatives wasn't somewhat warranted for a time.
However, even though then Senator Obama ought not be faulted in
any significant way for creating the financial mess, but given his foreknowledge of how serious the economic situation was leading up to the elections, and given his willingness to take on the serious economic challenges by being elected, and given all his campaign promises about fixing the economy, Obama should rightly be held
accountable for how he has dealt with the mess since then. (See HERE)
Seems fair?
At a town hall meeting in December of 2009, Obama said, "I promise you this,
I won't rest until things get better...I didn't run for president to
sweep our messes under the rug." (See HERE).
One of the key planks of Obamanamics has been to
shrink the financial disparity between the rich and poor. And yet, during Obama's third year in office, the long trend in which everyone was getting richer suddenly turned to where only the very rich got richer and everyone else got poorer. (See HERE) Nevertheless, not only did liberals blame Bush and conservatives for the bad economy (see HERE) and the growing disparity between rich and poor (see HERE), but during the 2012 presidential elections, they didn't hold Obama responsible for not keeping his promise to shrink income inequality. In fact, there isn't any indication in the polls that liberals viewed Obama as having anything to do with the growing income disparity even though he had supposedly not rested until the disparity would be fixed, and he also implemented economic policies that liberals, for the life of them, cant see actually contributed to the problem. (See HERE)
This same liberal penchant for blame-shifting has also played itself out in other economic issue, like unemployment (see HERE and HERE), the national debt (see HERE and HERE and HERE), welfare and entitlement and poverty issues (see HERE and HERE and HERE), etc.
The bad economy isn't the only thing that Bush and conservatives are somewhat wrongly blamed for. Instead of owning up to their own mistakes, liberals have also shifted the blame in regards to Fast-and-Furious (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE), Benghazi (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE), the IRS scandal (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE ), the NSA scandals (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE), Sandy Hook mass murders (see HERE), Boston Marathon bombings (see HERE), a bridge collapse (see HERE), and so many more.
Not only are various Leftist LUNCs the unpleasant result of liberal blame-shifting, and thus a rational argument against their blame-shifting, but there is solid evidence that the shifted blame has been unwarranted. (see HERE and HERE and HERE)
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