Karen Hughes: Not Writing the Talking Points

Steve Benen quotes Karen Hughes, who tries this attempt to spin the economy for George W. Bush:

"I have to disagree with you, Mark, about rescuing the economy, I think that happened before President Bush left office when they took the action that they did on TARP, and the banks have now repaid much of that money, but that's what stabilized the economy and prevented the collapse of the financial system."

Steve says:

Be on the lookout for this one -- as the economy improves and the Bush Recession ends, Republicans will try to convince people that Bush, not Obama, deserves credit for rescuing the economy...Karen Hughes -- and soon, her cohorts -- would us believe that the economy had already been rescued before Obama took office

They're truly shameless, but I can only assume this will be a major talking point fairly soon.

Well, they certainly are not going to give Obama credit for anything (Republicans still don't give FDR credit for anything he did -- and for that matter, it's not as if Democrats give Republicans credit for much of anything positive).  I'm very confident, however, that we won't be hearing "TARP saved the economy" from anyone but the most dedicated W. groupies. 

The correct GOP analysis is that the economy crashed because people anticipated Obama's Big Government, High Tax policies.  The economy (will have) recovered either because people anticipated that Republicans would soon be returned to office and slash taxes; or, because the Bush tax cuts yielded economic growth; or, if neither of those works, then there's always the lasting effects of the Reagan tax cuts. 

Karen Hughes sounds confused.  She will either figure it out soon, or she'll become a museum piece.