Well, gee whiz — in a press conference earlier this week, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi yet again brought out the over-the-top dramatics the blame all of President Obama’s ‘inherited’ economic problems on ‘the previous administration.’ This level of political pageantry is right up there with the ‘Republicans hate clean air and clean water’ she likes to trot out at every available opportunity:

Four years ago on September 18 – read it, I won’t go into all the details, except to bottom-line it — we had a meeting in the Speaker’s office in the Capitol — bipartisan, bicameral — at which the secretary of the Treasury described a situation of our economy and our financial institutions that was so dire.  He took us to the depths of Hell, a place so low that even Dante couldn’t find it — make a circle down there, it was so low. …Four years ago and two days ago the chairman of the Fed said if we don’t act immediately we will not have an economy — after hearing the description and knowing the crisis we were in as a result of the policies of the Bush administration. So for them [Republicans] to have the unmitigated gall to ask the question, ‘Are your better off now than you were four years ago?’ when they had taken us to the brink of a great depression, a meltdown of our financial institutions, deep indebtedness, deepening the national debt to the point that if we didn’t act immediately we wouldn’t have an economy — an economy by Monday. I mean, this election is urgent, because what are they advocating?  Going back to the same tax breaks for the rich that got us here in the first place.

So, nothing too out of the ordinary for her, but I need to take a beat and reflect on this because, once again, I find myself absolutely flabbergasted about the Democrats’ strategery in this race. This is it, guys — this is all they have to go on, and it is nothing short of pathetic. Blame Bush; Republican obstructionism; and tax breaks for millionaires. Translation? Not our fault; nothing we could do about it; low-rent populism.

The Democrats had two full years in which they had all the sweet time in the world to do whatever they wanted, during which they chose to pass massive behemoths of unpopular healthcare legislation and financial regulation and stimuli, and President Obama promised we’d see unemployment fall below eight percent.

Yet, lo and behold, here we are: Stagnant. Weaksauce economic growth, increased welfare-program participation, and joblessness have been the hallmarks of this administration’s policies, and the fact that the Democrats have so few of their own positives to tout and instead have to resort to all this mind-bogglingly stupid scapegoatism should be very, very telling.

I mean, come on — ‘tax breaks for the rich that got us here in the first place’? As if low taxes are a bad thing, because low taxes can’t pay for all the government the Democrats want? Sorry, but I’ll take less government, not higher taxes, thanks.