TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

The White House posted a chart a few days ago that splits our debt up between the Bush and Obama administrations, and alleges that Bush was responsible for $7 trillion of it, while Obama was (merely) responsible for $1.4 trillion.

Simple enough. One little problem, though: as Megan McArdle writes, the White House’s logic seems a little… tilted:

I’m a little less enamored, considering that this graph attributes decisions made by Obama and an all-Democratic Congress–like doubling down in Afghanistan–to Bush, while taking responsibility for basically nothing except the stimulus.  When Obama extends the Bush tax cuts for the rich under pressure from Congressional Republicans, that disappears from his side of the ledger, because after all, he didn’t want to do it.  When Bush enacts Medicare Part D under pressure from Congressional Democrats, the full cost is charged against his presidency.  The list of such silliness goes on.  Our president seems set to coin another presidential motto: “The duck starts here.”

I’m sure glad the President is raising the quality of the debt debate.