Just another day at the office

A commentary in that hotbed of radical left-wing activism, Business Week magazine, charges that Shrub's Council of Economic Advisors

unilaterally changed the start date of the last recession to benefit Bush's reelection bid. Instead of using the accepted start date of March, 2001, the CEA announced that the recession really started in the fourth quarter of 2000 - a shift that would make it much more credible for the Bush Administration to term it the "Clinton Recession." In a subsequent press conference, [CEA chair N. Gregory] Mankiw said that the CEA had looked at the available data and "made the call."

What's wrong here is that for the last 75 years, the "call" has been made by a private nonpartisan group called the National Bureau of Economic Research, an arrangement Business Week calls "one of the few remaining bastions of economic neutrality." It's just another example of why people call this "the most politicized White House in history." Everything but everything must be bent to the purpose of ensuring a second Bush administration.

His first administration has compiled an appalling track record on trade, budget deficits, and jobs and has come to be regarded by many on both sides of the political spectrum as fiscally irresponsible. Still, in fairness it must be noted that a recession starting in March, 2001, less than two months after Bush came into office, can't be blamed on him. He can be blamed for the asinine way his team responded to it, a response that consisted almost exclusively of grotesque obsequiousness to the rich and powerful and undoubtedly contributed to the extent and depth both of the recession and the jobless "recovery," but he didn't cause it.

But that's not enough. It's not enough avoid blame for the onset of recession, it's necessary to be able to point blame at someone else. So move the start date back, back to the fourth quarter of 2000, back to whenever it's politically convenient, and blame it on the Democrats. "We're in a strong recovery from the Clinton recession." It doesn't change the present, it doesn't change anything they've done or not done, it doesn't wipe out their failures - but it does distract from them. It's all slogans, symbolism, and soundbites.

If we've learned nothing else these last three-plus years, it's that while that may be an effective way to run a political campaign, it's a really lousy way to run a country.