I have noticed something over the past year.

It seems that everytime there is good news for the United States, it seems it is bad news for the Democrats in 2004.

Examples:

1. The economy and stock market coming back strong. The Democrats are down playing this as a jobless recovery but then again the unemployment rate is down from a high of 6.4% to 5.7%.

2. Bush goes to Iraq for Thanksgiving to boost moral of troops. Democrats call it a photo-op.

3. One of the biggest, Saddam is caught. Howard Dean comes out and says the world is not a safer place because he is out of power.


So do you think good news for the country is bad news for the Democrats in 2004?

I think your question is a bit flawed, Sleeper. First, how is a jobless rate of 5.7% bad news for Democrats? How is identifying something as a photo op bad news for Democrats? For that matter, how is George Bush holding up a prop turkey "good news for the United States"?? And how is a misquote attributed to Howard Dean bad news for anyone??? (He actually said "the capture of Saddam has not made America safer" - and it hasn't.)

Fundamentally, you are mistaken in interpreting criticism of the economy, White House PR, and the "war on terror" as being exclusively a Democratic pursuit. Many Republicans have levelled the same legitimate criticisms - so have many Libertarians, most Greens, and a lot of independents like myself. Is such legitimate criticism bad news for them - or just bad news for the Bush administration?

Actual good news for the country - like a marginal drop in the highest unemployment figures since the Great Depression - is obviously good news for everyone, regardless of their party affiliation. I see little here to debate.

Sleeper, your examples of "what's good for America" are pretty thin indeed, if that's all you've got. Let's take them one at a time, shall we?


Then again, Bush was handed an unemployment rate of 4.3%. So what's so good for America about taking our unemployment rate up by almost 2 full percentage points, and then bragging that it's now come down by just over half a percentage point?

Also, the sustained job losses over the past three years has been nearly 2.5 million. Good for corporate America, in terms of keeping wages down, no doubt, but good for America overall? I hardly think so.


I don't deny that this was a great morale-booster for the troops that were there, or even the troops in general. But again, how was this good for America overall? Good for Bush's re-election campaign, sure. But for America?


No question that Saddam out of power is a good thing for Iraqis and Iraq's immediate neighbors, like Kuwait and Iran, and even Israel. But America? Considering the lack of WMD's found, Colin Powells admission yesterday that there was no solid connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda that has not been disproven by better intelligence, etc., I don't see how we are any safer from terrorists. And considering we still have major problems in places like Syria, North Korea, and Pakistan, if we are safer, it's only marginally. So, is the world as a whole, or even America specifically safer? Not really.

Now, spun, the way the administration spins stories, they can make it seem like these are all the best things to happen since sliced bread for America, and make the democrats look bad initially. But if you look through the smoke and past the mirrors, you'll see that these things aren't necessarily as good for America as a whole, as they are portrayed.

Actually, that number change masked bad news, not good news.

Only 1000 new jobs were added to the country's payrolls during the period that the unemployment rate went from 5.9% to 5.7%. How is this possible?

Well, it's all in how you determine someone is "unemployed". The Dept. of Labor considers you unemployed if you are searching for a job and receiving unemployment benefits.

So, to make a long story short, the Dept. of Labor also said when they announced the change to the unemployment rate that between 300,000 and 400,000 people dropped off the unemployment roles either because their benefits ran out or because they grew frustrated and stopped looking for a new job. Great news for Bush!!

Other parts of the announcement that didn't make news:



By the way, we need to add 150,000 jobs each month for the employment rate -- as opposed to the "unemployment rate" -- to be stable. We only did that for TWO MONTHS of 2003.

Party on, Bushies!

For any event great or small that can be called good for the nation, you can find a Republican or Democrat who says that it is bad.

We tend to hear a few voices from the other side and decide all Republicans or Democrats are uncompromising advocates of the side that we feel is ridiculous.

Oops. My bad. I went back and checked my numbers at the DOL site.

See here Total Non-Farm Payroll Employment

Turns out we've only exceeded 150,000 new jobs for exactly ONE month of 2003. My bad. Thought it had been two.

Hmm... In fact, looking at the numbers, we've only exceeded 150,000 new jobs for exactly ONE MONTH of the ENTIRE BUSH PRESIDENCY!

You're right, sleeper, we should be considering that good news!!

I just don't understand negativity. I guess that is why I have found myself successful, as I watch others around me fail. Oh well too bad.

To answer the question the answer is yes. The President is given too much credit, or blame, for the economy. Good news does help the existing administration regardless of what party that administration belongs to. It harms his political opponents...in this case the Democrats. A rather simple answer for what is a simple question.

Your implied sarcasm aside, Sleeper, who are you to say that everyone that's complaining about the economy, for instance, is doing poorly, and that you are doing well only because you are not "negative"? I happen to be doing very well myself, thank you. But that doesn't mean that I cannot see or appreciate the problems others are going through.

Anyone that cheers about 1,000 jobs being created when it was supposed to be 300,000 has their head buried in the sand. This is not good news, economically speaking, by any yardstick.

And then to say that this "good news" only shows what whiners the Democrats, and Independents are, is disingenuous at best.

As well as to say what Howard Dean said about us not being any safer now that Saddam is captured. Hmm let me guess that thru the holiday christmas break the terror threat indicator went to yellow just to give us a little christmas cheer with a color we have not seen in awhile?

Your empathy for your fellow man is truly touching Sleeper, but what you see as "good news" for the country (or at least that portion of the country that favors George W. Bush) others may see as business as usual---bad business.

The economy and stock market may be coming back strong, but unfortunately jobs aren't coming back with them.

The December 2003 job gain of 1,000 is a staggering 305,000 jobs below the promised monthly increase. In fact, job growth has never reached even a third of the promised rate of 306,000 jobs a month since the tax cut was implemented in July 2003.

A gain of a measley 1,000 jobs is a sick joke. Do you mean to tell me that even with holiday hiring, this supposedly robust economy can only generate a thousand jobs? Bush is a job-killer, not a job creator.

Everything a president does less than a year away from the election has political considerations. Bush wanted a photo-op for his relection. He has $99 million in the bank and for the next 10 months he's going to be telling us how he walked on water, made the blind see and fed the masses with a loaf of bread. Only suckers and supporters will fall for this fairy tale.

Finally, how has the capture of Saddam made America safer? It sure hasn't made the U.S. soldiers that have died in Iraq since his capture any safer. After Saddam's caputre the nation went to it's highest alert status and it only ended today. If this is safety who needs danger?

The good news for the country will come when Bush and his thugs are sent packing in November.

Are you telling me that Bush can not do those things. In reading the papers and the tv news telling us about the booming economy, I just assumed it was natural that he could do these miracles. Darn and I believed him. He wouldn't be telling lies again,would he??????

The Democrats in 2003 have relied on the bad economy and the fact that Saddam wasn't captured (until he was) as ammo to take Bush down. They used it during their debates. Now, seeing as the economy has improved, Saddam has been captured, and there hasn't been any terrorist attacks on American soil since 9/11, the democrats have no ammo. Now, they have to turn to beating up on front-runner Dean or try and find something else to critisize Bush on.

I guess lying about Iraq and 9/11 being connected and getting us into a war in Iraq and over 490+ solders killed plus over 2,000 seriously wounded is not important.

I am sure the families of these soliders will apreciate you point of view

Well, GA, the economy has improved some, but whether or not it's sustainable, is yet to be seen, and the unemployment rate is still abysmal, so I can still see him being beaten up over these until things get much better.

As for Saddam, for me at least, he wasn't really the important one to capture or kill. That's been Osama bin Laden all along, and we don't have him yet. He's still the major prize for retribution for 9/11 as far as I'm concerned, but it looks like Bush has taken his eye off the ball in Afghanistan.

As for there not having been any more terrorist attacks on US soil since 9/11, I'll remind you that after the original WTC bombing in 1993, there wasn't another case of a foreign terror attack in America until 9/11. So, that's hardly conclusive, especially since we know that Homeland Security has been underfunded, and there are a whole lot of security holes still to be filled in.

Add to that the fact that we still have found no WMD in Iraq, and that a lot of lefties and moderates feel they were lied to, as far as why we invaded Iraq. Then there is the killing off of clean air and water standards, and a host of spending initiatives that should have been vetoed, but weren't.

I'd say there is still plenty of amunition to fire at Bush when the campaigns really start to heat up.

The unemployment rate has slowed due to the simple fact that so many in the workforce have stopped trying to find work. The creation of new jobs in this current administration only reached the needed level for one month, and it has been pointed out by a Princeton economics professor on NPR that the job growth rate is slower than it was during the recession that plagued the Reagan administration! Companies are producing more at this point because they are laying more and more responsibility on their remaining employees to produce, and that will only work up to a point. It was pointed out in this thread that while hiring of temps usually signals the creation of jobs, this practice currently means that companies want to keep employees who do not have to be paid benefits. Meanwhile, Lou Dobbs' Exporting America list of companies that are sending jobs (including those requiring technical expertise) overseas continues to grow.

When America is importing more goods than it is exporting, it cannot continue without the country paying for it in the long run. While a few modest gains have been made, we are nowhere close to having a healthy economy yet.

While Saddam Hussein has been captured, the weapons of mass destruction were never found, and they were the excuse Bush used to invade that country. Considering that the only belligerence that Iraq had shown the United States was shooting at flyovers and that Iraq did not prove to be the "imminent threat" that Bush & Cronies warned us of, he still has a lot of explaining to do to the American people, our allies, and the world. Saddam Hussein is a curiosity in a side show tent in comparison. The toothless lion.

Osama bin Laden remains at large, and there continues to be incursions into Afghanistan (and now Iraq) of radical, anti-American elements. If the Orkin Man said the house was purged of vermin and you still heard a big rat scurrying behind the wall, would you say he had done his job to your satisfaction? So yes, in terms of ammo, the Democrats still have a lot to use. The trick is to cast a positive light on voting out the rat in the White House and his gang.