Ahh, so we are back to putting Obama in "scary" pictures with sad music to convince us all that he's evil? It's been 63 days, and he's already kept about 70% of his top campaign promises according to PolitiFact.com. Overall, out of 500 promises PolitiFact is tracking, he's kept 20, 44 are in the works, 3 are stalled, 3 were compromised, and 3 were broken. And I'd argue that Promise #253 to allow 5 days for public comment for non-emergency bills wasn't broken for the Stimulus bill, because it was necessary to get money into the economy again, and quickly. That's not a bad record for only 63 days.

So President Obama is right, the GOP is great at being against things, and not so great at being for things (at least nothing that will help the country). I do not think the Republicans are incapable of coming up with a good idea or two on the economy, I do think they aren't even trying to come up with a good idea or two. A few weeks ago Rep. Boehner stated that the GOP isn't there to legislate, they are only there to get a message out. Even if you no longer have the votes to pass your failed policies, you do have enough members to be able to offer some valuable ideas.

And while the GOP spends its time trying to smear the Democrats and President Obama, the Dem numbers either remain largely unchanged or go up while the GOP numbers continue to fall to depths I wouldn't have thought possible.

President Obama continued:

"On budget issues, what you've seen is the Republican Party trying to position themselves as fiscally conservative after eight years of being in power and not being particularly fiscally conservative, and I understand their efforts to brand themselves in that fashion," the president said.

Advertisement "I just want to make sure that when it comes to solving this current economic crisis, that we don't get so caught up in short-term politics that we're missing the big picture," Obama said.

This is not the time to play games. President Obama has been very consistent in saying that. I think he's reached out with multiple olive branches to the Republicans, he's been more than gracious in dealing with them. But the Republicans STILL don't get it. People recognize what they are doing now because they saw them do it all during 2008. They are playing politics, and when you are worried about your job, your child's education, your inability to afford decent health care, you don't have time to play the political games that people want to play (on both sides). President Obama cannot fix the economy by himself. If the GOP wants to offer ideas, I say "go for it" we need all of the ideas we can get to make sure things work out the same. But when you bring your ideas, you have to bring them in good faith, don't bring the same failed ideas from the past administration that got us into this mess. Trying to blame President Obama for everything isn't working. Average people, who don't spend all of their time watching 24 hour news stations and reading blogs/newspapers online, only know that they see President Obama and other Democrats offering ideas, while they see Republicans whining about those ideas without offering anything themselves. Overall, I think President Obama is a patient man, but I don't think he suffers fools gladly, and right now the Republicans are acting downright foolishly. Obama is presenting his ideas, he's doing all he can to get us out of the messes the Republicans got us into. You'd think the Republicans who managed to hold on to their seats would rather been seen as trying to work WITH the President as opposed to working against him.

Tonight, President Obama will once again talk straight to the American people, which I'm sure will inspire more head explosions from the GOP that's trying to claim he's becoming "over exposed." Personally, I like that Obama is out in the open telling us what he's doing and what he's trying to do and attempting to engage all citizens indeed the entire world, it beats the hell out of the secrecy of the last eight years.

UPDATE Looks like the Dems are going to capitalize on the GOP's hater mentality of trying to convince us all that President Obama is doing too much:

"I guess when you have no new ideas, anything more than zero must seem overwhelming. But, if the Republican party thinks that attacking new ideas is a winning answer, they’re more out of touch than we all thought. Now is a time when we could use all the good ideas we can get — and we invite the Republican party to offer some new ones rather than playing the same old Washington games. They can start by putting out their own budget proposal."

It's fun being on message!

(From Harry Reid's Spokesman) If Republicans would have done a little planning of their own over the last eight years, perhaps we still wouldn’t have 138,000 troops in Iraq. Perhaps with a little planning they wouldn’t have stranded countless Americans in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps a little planning would have helped stave off the collapse of the housing sector. I know it must be hard for them to comprehend, but one day they’ll come to realize that competent proactive planning isn’t such a bad thing.

Ouch! h/t DJShay

:o)