Point blank, the programs Obama calls out are socialist programs. So yeah, Bush pushed forward socialist fiscal policy. Now Obama needs to own/admit that he’s talking those socialist steps that Bush started even further. But instead, we get spin. Notice that the smooth, polished Obama is lost in a sea of verbalized ummms and ahhs when he tries to spin things? Guy must be a horrible poker player.

At any rate, very strange call, and very strange logic to state that he’s not a socialist. The syllogism would go something like this:

Bush is a Republican.
No Republican would pass socialist fiscal legislation.
Therefore Bush’s policies were not socialist.

My policies are an extension of Bush’s.
None of Bush’s policies are socialist.
Therefore my policies are not socialist.

Gotta love how rhetoric beats out reason.

Why is it not inconceivable that the same ends can be acheived with a slightly modified approuch?

Socialism says that the goverment controls the means of production. But why can’t government not own the means of production but have an influence on or control the means of production to such an extent that the end result is the same?

Didn’t the government say that if they bailed out the car makers, that they could then direct what kinds of cars the companies made? We know that if banks take bail out money, the government can then dictate the salaries of the CEO. Isn’t this “controlling the means of production” or government control of business?

So it is not entirely impossible that there could be a new path to the same destination.

Well, he certainly wasn’t a free market capitalist.