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Presidential Pariah
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Nobody Loves You Like Mama Does
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Too Late To The Duck Hunt
Sore Dems Want Out of Proportion Primaries
Vote For Justice
Breeding Sorrow
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Barack Obama's Bitter Half
Hillary And The Golden Handshake
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New Orleans Advances -- Slowly
Mrs. And Mr. President
Petronomics 101
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Michael Moore, Frank Rich, Jeremiah Wright And John Hagee
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Congressional Districts Deny Democracy
Hillary’s Role: Exit Stage Left
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Playing Out The String



Presidential Pariah
Victor Davis Hanson 5/8/2008
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We are in one of the longest presidential campaigns in modern memory -- and haven't even started focusing on the general election.

It's been enough to drive most of us mad, but if there's one person in particular suffering the most, it may be President Bush.

It's been noted here before that we have not had an election since 1952 in which an incumbent president or vice president was not running in at least partial defense of an existing administration's record.

That means Bush is not just a lame duck but an easy target for all three current candidates -- none of whom have any investment in the president’s legacy.

Consider that the last president in a similar position was Harry Truman. He left office with an approval rating in the 20s, and it took years before historians revised the standard negative and mostly unfair view of him.

When there is no incumbent in a long race, almost everything of the last four years becomes fair and uncontested game. In 2004, Bush defended his record for months on the stump; now it has become almost second nature for all three candidates to denounce it daily.

John McCain has distanced himself from Bush as much as he can, even as his Democratic opponents dub
him John McBush -- when they are not outdoing each other in their denunciation of the president.

Last week, I asked a fierce Bush critic what he thought were the current unemployment rate, the mortgage default rate, the latest economic growth figures, interest rates and the status of the stock market.

He blurted out the common campaign pessimism: "Recession! Worst since the Depression!"

Then he scoffed when I suggested that the answer was really a 5 percent joblessness rate in April that was lower than the March figure; 95 to 96 percent of mortgages not entering foreclosure in this year’s first quarter; .6 percent growth during the quarter (weak, but not recession level); historically low interest rates; and sky-high stock market prices.

There are serious problems -- high fuel costs, rising food prices, staggering foreign debt, unfunded entitlements and annual deficits. Yet a president or vice president running for office (and covered incessantly by the media) would at least make the argument that there is a lot of good news, and that the bad that offsets it could be shared by a lot of culpable parties, from the Congress to the way we, the public, have been doing business for the last 20 years.

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History Will Judge Us
By Mike Lane  - Cagle Cartoons  * Posted 09/13/2006
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History Will Judge Us
© Copyright 2006   Mike Lane  - All Rights Reserved.

Posted By: Anita  on Thursday, May 08, 2008

That "5%" unemployment rate only includes those people who are still collecting unemployment benefits, but does not include the people who are still unemployed after their benefits run out and are still looking for work. It also does not include the people who have given up looking for jobs because there just aren't any. Someone in the Bush administration  was asked on CNN a couple of weeks ago  "what should people do who can't find work?". The first thing the he said was to move to another country!!! The actual unemployment rate of Americans looking for work is around 23%, and getting higher every day as people's unemployment benefits run out.

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