Philadelphia Inquirer: Obama is the better man for the job

October 16th, 2012 by Gloria Shur Bilchik

Coming down hard on the Republican Party and its “Etch-A-Sketch” Presidential nominee Mitt Romney, the Philadelphia Inquirer calls President Obama the better man for the job of President. ” A vote for him is an investment in a strong future, which is why The Inquirer endorses his reelection.”

Leading up to its endorsement of a second term for President Obama, the Inquirer devotes multiple paragraphs to a scathing critique of the the Republican party’s political obstructionism, its “blame game,” and its obfuscation of the circumstances that led to the financial crisis inherited by the Obama administration.

The GOP would prefer the nation repeat history rather than remember it. Instead, remember unemployment rates above 10 percent; automakers going bankrupt; the stock market losing half of its value; the net worth of U.S. households plummeting; the nation losing 500,000 jobs in one month; the Dow Jones average losing 800 points in one day; hundreds of thousands of homes in foreclosure because people bought houses that they and their lenders knew they couldn’t afford; banks collapsing because their debtors couldn’t repay their debts, and neither could they.

Republicans and Mitt Romney also like to point out that the recovery has been slow. True, says the Inquirer, “but its speed has been hampered by obstinate Republicans in Congress dead set on opposing any program that might boost Obama’s reelection…But with the nation desperate for employment, economists say the [2009] stimulus created 2.5 million jobs and added up to 3.8 percent to the gross national product.” Acknowledging that there may have been more that President Obama could have done to help the economy, the Inquirer notes that “Romney hasn’t presented any evidence that he would have done better. He has reached back to the Republicans’ familiar trickle-down rhetoric about creating jobs by cutting taxes. But he leaves out key details, so no one can tell if his plan would work.”

Like every election with an incumbent, this one is mostly about that person’s performance. But that doesn’t mean the challenger gets to escape scrutiny. And when you take a close look at Romney, you have to question what is real and what isn’t. As president, would he be the man who said he can’t be concerned about the 47 percent of Americans too poor to pay federal income taxes, or the one who days later apologized for saying that? It’s hard to tell because the Massachusetts moderate who fashioned the precursor to Obamacare has reinvented himself as a right-leaning father figure for tea-party patron Paul Ryan, his Ayn Rand-devotee running mate. Would Romney be more like Ryan as president? Conservatives spending millions on his campaign believe he will. But that’s not what America needs.

On foreign policy, the Inquirer says that President Obama deserves credit for:

…being the commander in chief who finally got Osama bin Laden. America is safer as a result of that. America will be healthier, with more people insured, as a result of Obamacare. More Americans are employed, although not nearly enough, because of Obama’s saving the auto industry and promoting policies that are creating jobs. What Obama has already been able to accomplish in the face of unrelenting partisan opposition suggests he could have a remarkably successful presidency if given a second term.