Even before Barack Obama was a full month into his presidency, people were already laying blame for the state of the union at his feet. Boy, he had sure changed things, alright -- for the worse!, they would say.

Of course I anticipated that the downward trajectory the country had been on for years would be pinned on Obama if the Republicans (or Libertarians, i.e. Republicans who want to smoke dope) had any say so. I just didn't expect it to happen so soon.

Let us not forget exactly when the dominoes began falling. No, it wasn't January 20, 2009, the inauguration. It wasn't November 5th, the day we knew Obama was our new president. In fact it wasn't even September 10th, when Lehman Brothers was allowed to go bankrupt, the day Bill Clinton says the Republicans lost the 2008 election. The Greek columns began cracking and the earth began opening in December of 2007, when Obama was still just a primary candidate with something to prove.

Don't believe me? Maybe you'll believe CNN reporting on the findings of the National Bureau of Economic Research. How about Reuters reporting the same thing? How about a October 2008 report -- again, before it was a certainty Barack Obama would be president -- that said consumer confidence was at an all-time low?

Maybe we've forgotten about the amount of the national debt that is owed to the Iraq War, which, by the way, was not started by Barack Obama. We were supposed to have been out of there within a year, with the Iraqis throwing flowers at our feet according to Dick Cheney. Instead, check out the cost.

Let's not forget 2.5 million jobs lost in 2008, 1.2 million of those accounted for by September.

Here's a couple of other things I don't understand: if business works best when the government just gets out the way, and these CEO's are such rugged individualists, why is it they're the ones lining up at the trough? We keep hearing about these deadbeat homeowners who expect us all to pay for their mistakes, but I haven't heard of any of them jetting into D.C. to ask for another billion, it's all been guys from Citigroup and the car companies. Interesting...

And if you think Obama is instituting Socialism, maybe you've forgotten who authorized that first $300 billion bailout. You know, the one where the money is unaccounted for? And here's another question: you know when/if Obama gets this ship turned around, all the Republitarians will say, "Well, he benefited from Bush's ____ plan." So can you tell me now what little-heard-of program of Bush's is already at work fixing this?

Yes, it's hard to turn around a train wreck on a dime. The chances are the train may continue off the track, maybe even at an accelerated speed, after you've appointed a new conductor. But let's give him more than a couple of months, okay? After all, what does it really matter? A guy sitting behind a desk in Washington, D.C. has nothing to do with your ability to THRIVE like larvae! So thrive away, thrive away, thrive away all!