By Mike DeVine(with voluminous excerpts from StephC of Hillbilly politics)

In the aftermath of the failures of hope, change, messiah impersonations and lipstick on pigs, the Obama campaign has decided to re-cast The One as The Gipper by asking America this question :

“Are you better off now than you were four or eight years ago?”

Before venturing into StephC’s (aka hillbilly) cornucopia of wisdom (in blockquotes below) that re-frames the better question of When did we stop being better off?, let’s look at the domestic and foreign political landscape of 1980 when Ronaldus Magnus first posed his four-year question to the incumbent president.

The Democratic Party had held congress for the previous 16 years and the White House for the previous four. This is key, so remember it.

The Congress had abandoned the anti-communist South Vietnamese army while they were winning the war an almost impeached republican president had turned around before resigning over an unauthorized third rate burglary he covered up. President Carter turned loose the Islamic and Communist, dawgs from Hell in Tehran and Afghanistan, respectively, with his recitations of our “inordinate fear of communism” and the Ayatollah Khomeini was “a religious man I can work with” as he abandoned the Shah. Soviet tanks rolled unencumbered by any fear they would be checked by any action save for less RSVPs for track meets.

A new economic statistic called the “misery index” had to be invented to fully translate what is still the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Interest rates and inflation were mean 20% while unemployment neared 105. And Joe Biden was around to support moratoriums and/or regulations that have prevented the building of any new nuclear power or oil refinery plants and which have prevented the expansion of areas available for oil/natural gas on US soil of offshore since 1978.

Since Obama was only 12-15 years old when Democrats committed the above crimes against the United States, he is able to commune with them in good conscious.

Fast forward to present day (post defeat of the USSR by Republicans and a few Dem boll weevils in the Cold War) America and its near full employment and low interest rates; a decimated al Qaeda with terrorists fleeing defeat in a post three elections Iraq; and Roberts and Alito on a Supreme Court one vote shy of ending the slaughter of small human beings in the millions.

Eight years ago, faced with a tech bubble hangover from the Clinton years, President Bush and a Republican Congress passed tax rate cuts that nipped that recession in the bud and prevented one following the attacks of September 11th. After suffering multiple terrorist attacks in the 1990s, there has been no successful terrorist attack on American soil since that fateful day seven years ago.

No thanks to Democrats in Congress, including Obama and Biden. And even Hillary voted against funds for the troops and called General Petraeus a liar. Remember that “liar” word, for it weighs heavy on the ways in which hillbilly Steph describes when we stated to be worse off.

And while Democrats can claim no credit for the economic prosperity of this decade that has overall and minority homeownership still at record levels nor for the success of the surge that has overall victory in Iraq in sight, they sure do own most of the blame for our problems that have so many worse off.

Democrats who stopped expanded oil drilling/nuclear-oil refinery plant construction from 1980-2000 via Speakers Tip O’Neil and Jim Wright and President Clinton, have defeated all of President Bush’s attempts to revive same staring in 2001 thanks to Senate Majority Leader Daschle, Minority Leader Reid via filibusters, and Speaker Pelosi, the later despite extreme suffering by low-income families and all businesses that threatens the health of our economy.

It is Democrat created Maes (Fannie and Freddie) that are crumbling under the rubble of a credit/housing crunch partially caused by Democrat legislation and liberal court decisions that make lenders fear lawsuits for race discrimination if they don’t lend to credit challenged borrowers.So, even before Hurricanes Katrina and Ike devastated the Gulf, Hurricane Jack Ass kicked America in the teeth. In 2004, America rejected Tornado Kerry that spun off the Jack Ass. I will let StephC pick things up from there re:

1) Bushlied

In October of 2004, just a month before the elections, here came the meme, “Bush Lied, People Died.” If he did, so did Clinton and every member of Congress who stood for the war in Iraq but we’re not supposed to remember that. Kerry was getting stomped during the campaigning in spite of women drooling over him. They had to do something and this something was the precursor to the nation not being better off.With yet another contested election to face, the Democrats also said they don’t recognize Bush as president. They continued the mantra of “Bush Lied, People Died” yet in spite of all the calls to impeach both Bush and Cheney, that’s all the Democrats had because they were the minority in Congress. In 2005, they ramped up the rhetoric against Bush and threw Cheney in as well and along came Katrina which created the perfect storm against Bush and Cheney.

2) Katrina

We all took an economic hit from Katrina. Gas prices soared because of the damage to wells in the Gulf, which had the domino effect of prices for everything going up. Money was tighter and we were still in the long war so the “Bush Lied, People Died” mantra worked in this gloomy scenario aided by the disaster that was Katrina. This couldn’t be helped and by the time prices were at pre-Katrina levels, it was too late.Another by-product of Katrina was a greater amount of illegal immigration as they saw an opportunity to make loads of money and came in droves to fill up labor and construction jobs on the Gulf. Illegal immigration has always been something of a problem, even more so after 9/11, but Katrina was the straw that broke the camel’s back, so to speak. We couldn’t absorb them into other jobs and the economic hit from having to deal with them on top of everything else just added to the Democrats’ gleeful meme of doom and gloom, although at the time the illegal aliens weren’t identified publicly as a big problem. I know this because my husband, being in construction was discussing with his boss whether they would be sending anyone to the Gulf to help with clean up when suddenly they were all told, they weren’t needed because crews were coming from Mexico. They came to make some quick money, but then, they stayed.

3) Democrats control Congress for last two years

The Democrats win Congress with their memes and that’s the turning point towards South. In the early months we didn’t see a lot of difference except for the fight against wholesale amnesty for untold numbers of illegal aliens. But then, Al Gore won an Oscar for his Global Warming scam which has profited him and anyone in it the scam with him but no one else. States raised taxes and the only real legislation that Congress has done in the last almost two full years, now, is mandates for ethanol and a host of other environmental indignities that have done nothing but take money out of our pockets because the price of basic foods went through the roof at an enormous pace. In addition, global demand for oil has risen as China has entered the global economy as a major player. So, gas prices go up as ever slave to the law of supply and demand. While global warming mandates had already brought about a price increase in basic foodstuffs, also tied to the law of supply and demand, the increase in fuel prices made a bad situation worse. By the way, they still haven’t impeached Bush and Cheney and there’s a good reason why. It might make a good campaign slogan but there’s not much meat in it and that’s all they have. Impeachment hearings would bring out the fact that they all saw the same intelligence that Bush had and also the fact that 4 of the 5 components which Saddam was accused of possessing were found. Instead of wondering where the 5th component went to, it was more politically expedient to say Bush lied.Oh, and gasoline isn’t the only thing that comes from a barrel of oil. Nor diesel. Something we take for granted every day comes from those barrels of oil: plastics. Everything we use on a daily basis has some plastic parts attached to it: home and cell phones, household appliances, computers, the knobs on your kitchen stove, and more. Some fabrics are made with nylon, a byproduct of oil as well. Vaseline is called petroleum jelly in its generic name… key word: petroleum. Some cosmetics are made using petroleum jelly as the base. And more. In short, there is no such creature as oil independence. There’s nothing to replace it in all its forms.And Congress’ more open government? Well, since the Democratic majority, Congress has attempted to slip through all sorts of legislation without informing the public about what they’re doing and have subjected the other side of the aisle to indignities of all kinds, yet, complain about partisanship. Earmarks that were considered out of control before are now the norm. Between entitlements and earmarks we’re bankrupting the country and that’s a fact. And the Democrats promise more of the same. I read somewhere or heard somewhere that for every dollar put in for subsidized health care only 4 cents of it is actually spent on the health care. That’s something for you proponents of government universal healthcare to think about. It may be expensive now but the government is going to give you only 4% of what you pay in. You may well find entire paychecks swallowed into universal healthcare at which point many will wonder why they work at all.So, our government has thrown us into the global warming scam which has trapped us financially and ramped up earmarks, besides. They have passed legislation to bail out banks and mortgage companies who made bad business decisions. Case in point, Bank of America, which decided sometime early last year they were going to extend credit to illegal aliens. Those illegal aliens don’t have the same obligations that ordinary citizens do and just walked away from those obligations and left the rest of us to foot the bill. But Congress has the answer!!! Bail them out and let one of the bailees write the legislation.

So, Barack, you may try and jip the Gip, but I doubt you will be heard above the dins of your 20-year pew-parked in a Hate Whitey America Church while living in a house bought with funds from Saddam’s regime via Chicago Way Felon Rezko and a political career launched with Chicago Way Felon Unrepentant Terrorist Ayers.

You and Biden are part and parcel of the reasons we started to get worse off with your bushlied, terrorists rights bills that seek to handcuff the Commander in Chief in intelligence gathering and opposition to victory in Iraq.

I suspect that your impersonation of Reagan will fall as flat as your Jesus mime. But I know one or two characters that you could successfully mimic:

George McGovern and Michael Dukakis.

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer columnsLegal Editor for The Minority and HinzSight Reports“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” – The Chief JusticeRace 4 2008“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson