If during Cheney's reign, Democrats had talked the way Republicans are talking today, what would have happened?
Report Dan Rather was fired from his position. Main Street Americans were told that they weren't loyalist. Secretary Colin Powell lost his reputation over deception and America was duped into spending over 2 Trillion dollars for a war in Iraq, who didn't have any WMD, and nothing to do with 9/11.
"Did Republicans deliberately crash the US economy"?
It is not that simple an answer. Yes, the Republican party leadership, as it is, did state that their number 1 priority was to make Obama a one term President http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-cohn/96591/mcconnell-villain-who-me. So, the tactic they have adopted is to block him at every chance they get regardless of the outcome. Thusly, they make demands they know he will not agree to on every issue they can. Examples are the extensions of tax cuts for the middle class (they tied this to extending tax cuts for million/billionaires), extending the debt ceiling (they tried to get him to cut benefits to medicare/schools), the Jobs Bill (they want massive cuts to medicare/schools extension/increase of tax breaks to big businesses and deregulation of environmental laws). However, Republicans do this because their ideology. They believe that government should be smaller and that industry should be more of the guiding force in social policies. They believe in a trickle-down economic philosophy and loosely regulated capitalism. The question comes down to whose philosophy is accurate: a larger more involved government or a scaled down government with a hands off approach. If you look at what is happening in the world, countries with austerity doctrines are economically and socially hurting right now.
Has Obama delivered on his promises?
The motivations that the Republicans have for attacking the Democrats are too obvious to require any comment. As for Obama delivering on his promises -- let's be real. He's BETTER the Republicans would be, but his record is still not * good.* The Republicans are lying if they say Obama has done "nothing," and of course through their Senate filibusters, they are trying to sabotage him every step of the way. But the Democrats have not been very tough in their financial reforms, because of the strength of the banking lobby with both major parties. Obama has yet to shut down Guantanamo Bay completely; he's only drawn SOME US troops out of Iraq; he isn't having much success in Afghanistan, and his famous energy reform promises so far seem like wishful thinking. I will happily vote AGAINST the Republican Party again this November, and I support SOME of what Obama is apparently attempting to do. I hope that every American voter with a brain makes similar choices. But as a leftwinger, I don't think that Democrats who are progressives, serious liberals or even democratic socialists (as I am) should lie to ourselves about this president or about the Democratic Party in general. They're not that great on financial reform; they're not very good on restoring the ability of labor unions to organize; they haven't restored full employment in this country; they didn't do health care reform in a very good way; and so far they aren't achieving anything serious in the way of climate change legislation -- partly because too many Democrats in Congress come from oil and coal producing states. Granted: we need to support Obama and the Democrats and hope they beat the Republicans in 2010, because they're the lesser of two evils. We urgently need to elect them again to avoid having the Greater Evil regain control in Washington. But they're not very progressive or even very liberal, nor are they good on the environment, nor are they all that much better than the GOP in foreign affairs -- witness Obama's failure to reverse the rightwing political coup in Honduras a few years ago. Like the Clintonites before them, the Obama crowd are not really very progressive or very free of corporate and Pentagon influence, and we're lying to ourselves if we pretend they are. Let's not lie to ourselves, even as we rush to re-elect these guys to prevent a GOP takeover.