Thursday, July 17, 2003 :::
 
What recession? With those words, the first President Bush sealed his fate. In fact, he was right--the 1990-91 recession was over when he said it, but the press, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Democratic Party and tired of Republican presidents, would have none of it and kept reporting the economy as if it were dying. James Carville and George Stephanopoulis, neither of whom has ever really worked for a living, put a sign up in the Clinton Campaign "war room" that said, "It's the economy, stupid." It wasn't; it was the perception of the economy. Clinton, during the transition, held an "economic summit" of "experts" in Arkansas to determine what he would do when he got to Pennsylvannia Avenue, but in fact, nothing was necessary. Which was a good thing, because the consistent testimony of his aides is that for the first three years he had no idea what he was doing.

Bush fils has lucked out, and everyone agrees that the recession, which started under Clinton, is now over, although the economy is not vibrant. That was confirmed today by a board of experts, as reported here in the Washington Post. A Mind That Suits has seen it said plausibly that the economic indicators are at their historic averages; i.e., it was this economy that made America what it is. If he just sends 100,000 more troops to Iraq, he just might walk through the re-election the way everyone is talking. If Iraq turns sour--which would indeed be his fault--then it may not matter how the economy is sputtering along. For a discussion of that issue, see below.

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 6:43 PM


0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.