Republicans on Capitol Hill think they've finally found Barack Obama's Achilles' heel: rising public concern about government spending and the federal deficit. [...]
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told POLITICO that GOP candidates in 2010 will almost certainly use the deficit to argue that Democrats own a Washington mess.
"This was not an inherited situation. This was a matter entirely of this administration's and this Democratic leadership's making," Cornyn said.
"Now, it's my understanding that 'an inherited situation' refers to 'situations' that are 'inherited,'" Benen writes. "In the context of presidential administrations, it refers to problems that an outgoing president leaves for his or her successor."
So if one president who, for the sake of argument, we'll call "Beorge Gush" hands off an economy in ruins, a financial system in flames, and record deficits to a following president who we'll call "Orack Bobama," then Bobama would be said to be inheriting these problems from Gush. Gush doesn't need to actually die and write in his will, "To Bobama, I bequeath everything I screwed up." It's a simple metaphor. To say the Orack didn't inherit an economy in a state that experts refer to as "royally screwed" from Beorge is just a little shy of brutally honest... [CLICK TO READ FULL POST]
