Blaming President Obama for ill economy is laughable

Editor,

I'd like to thank Dixon Duval for his comic piece in Monday's Daily Lobo. I couldn't help but laugh at his characterization of President Barack Obama as some sort of economic villain bent on destroying prosperity and turning America into a socialist dystopia.

Check out Duval's yuck-worthy statement in his second paragraph that the "huge drop in the Dow Jones can no longer be attributed to George W. Bush's administration or the war in Iraq." I mean, where does he come up with such comic gold? He has to be kidding, since everyone knows that the DJI and the economy are two separate things and that the DJI is a lagging indicator of problems with those particular stocks and consumer confidence. Also, he has to know that President Ronald Reagan, the white knight of American capitalism, had the Dow Jones tank on his inauguration day, so the two are obviously not connected.

It also bears pointing out that the economy has been in recession since late 2007, and, last I checked, Obama has been in office for about seven weeks. So unless a week is now 50 days long, Obama was not in office and none of his policies were in place in 2007. Duval must be joking.

Seriously, blaming a guy who has been on the job for seven weeks for the caustic, monumental, ignoble achievements of a president who was ostensibly the commander guy for the eight years prior is a feat of intellectual gymnastics and prosaic silliness that is worthy of a good, hearty chuckle. So, thanks again, Duval, for your great piece of farce to begin my Monday morning.

Zane Meek

UNM student