As the Congressional hearing on the failed solar energy manufacturer Solyndra gets under way, it's already clear that the Obama administration is prepared to fall back on a tried and tested strategy: blaming Bush.

In prepared testimony released ahead of the hearing before the House Energy and Commerce committee, the director of the Department of Energy's loans office, Jonathan Silver, emphasizes that the program that eventually granted a $535 million loan guarantee to the troubled firm was created during the Bush administration.

Not only that, Silver says, "Solyndra submitted its initial application in 2006, and much of the extensive due diligence on the transaction was conducted between 2006 and the end of 2008."

Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner indicated Sunday that he intends to stay on the job, despite calls for his resignation by some Republicans in the wake of Standard & Poor’s downgrade of America’s credit rating.

“Secretary Geithner has let the President know that he plans to stay on in his position at Treasury,” Jenni Lecompte, the assistant secretary for public affairs at Treasury, said in a statement. “He looks forward to the important work ahead on the challenges facing our great country.”

At the end of June, Bloomberg reported that Geithner was considering stepping down after he helped reach an agreement with Congress to raise the debt ceiling, in order to spend more time with his family.

Geithner defended his decision Sunday to remain at Treasury.

A cascade of bad economic and political news knocked President Barack Obama off his game today, and prompted him to revive his 2008-style criticism of his predecessor, and also to suggest that investors, consumers and even the media are responsible for today’s stalled economy.

The blame-game rhetoric – which pollsters say is counterproductive – came during the White House’s joint press conference with Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel. “It is just very important for folks to remember how close we came to complete disaster,” he told the watching TV cameras and reporters.

“The world economy took a severe blow two and a half years ago, and in part that is because of a whole set of policy decisions that had been made, and challenges that have been unaddressed over the course of the previous decade,” he said, standing alongside Merkel, whose economy has rebounded during the last two years.

President Obama is pointing to problems in Japan and Europe as challenges for the U.S. economy, placing some blame on events abroad for a domestic recovery that is showing signs of slowing down.

Government data released Friday showed employers in May hired the fewest number of workers in eight months and U.S. unemployment rose to 9.1 percent, up from 9.0 percent in April.
That bump is a political challenge for the president, whose re-election in 2012 may depend on his ability to convince voters that his economic policies have been successful.
Part of his pitch will include steering attention to outside forces as causes for economic woes at home.
The president did just that in his weekly radio and Internet address, broadcast Saturday, by highlighting "head winds" that are affecting the United States.

The pastor of a Simi Valley church that is providing sanctuary to an illegal [alien... criminal] accused city officials Thursday of unfairly blaming the church for the actions of anti-[illegal] immigration protesters. -- The Rev. June Goudey... said the c

Two illegal immigrants accused of stealing a truck and robbing a man at a park told police that the state’s employer sanctions law and other illegal immigration crackdowns forced them to commit the crimes. The men were arrested Sept. 13 in Phoenix and i