Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Political Downturn: After some great tough talk about fighting terrorism, Kerry goes off criticizing Bush's handling of the economy. Production and job creation are skyrocketing, and unemployment and inflation are still down. What's not to love?

According to Kerry's staff, it doesn't matter that Bush came into office immediately after the dot-com bubble burst and shortly before terrorists targeted our economic might by destroying the World Trade Center. It also doesn't matter that the recession, which began under Bush's predecessor, was one of the shortest in American history. Bush was supposed to find the magical switch in the White House that immediately fixes economic woes.

"If you get D-minuses for three and a half years in college, one semester of a B-minus does not get you on the honor roll," said Gene Sperling, who was a top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton and is now advising Mr. Kerry. "Our economy doesn't recover after three and a half extremely weak years of job creation with just a few positive months."

In truth, the president has very little influence over the economy to begin with. But if Kerry wants to argue that the president controls all, then he has to give credit to Bush for doing a phenomenal job in pumping up the economy so quickly. However, if he wants to be realistic about the president's powers, then he should talk about important issues, such as balancing the budget and fighting terrorists.