David Brooks: grading the president

[Cocoa]

Brooks casts desperately around for something positive to say about the president, and he comes up with this ridiculously generous -- even though the grades are mediocre -- grading of his economic record.

I love how this stupid rag, which rated Kerry as the most liberal senator, is always called "respected." Too bad the only grade that counts is the voters, which aren't going to social-promote Bush in Nov.




http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/01/opinion/01BROO.html

A few weeks ago, The National Journal, the highly respected and highly expensive Washington policy magazine, asked a dozen distinguished and politically independent economists to grade the Bush administration's economic performance. The magazine surveyed people like Charles Schultze of the Brookings Institution, the longtime Federal Reserve economist Lyle Gramley, David Wyss of Standard & Poor's, among others — a pretty good sampling of mainstream economic thinking.

As a group, the panel gave the Bush team a B-plus for short-term fiscal policy, a C-minus for long-term fiscal policy, a B for regulatory policy and a B-minus for trade and international economics. These aren't the grades that win you a Rhodes scholarship, but they're not too bad.

<snip>
I realize it's now practically illegal to have modulated views about anything related to the Bush administration, but I'd say it deserves the grades the National Journal economists gave it. What I don't understand is why the administration doesn't now pivot and say: O.K., we had a potential crisis. We prevented it. Now the recovery is in full swing. Let's address the long-term problems. Let's talk about the consequences of the aging baby boomers. Let's talk about reforming the tax code to encourage domestic savings.

After all, this election will probably hinge on Iraq anyway. The Bush folks might as well roll the dice with some attention-grabbing domestic ideas. That way if Bush is re-elected, he'll have a mandate to do something big.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

1. This Panel has made billions from BushCo.

And they want to keep the money spigot wide open -- so they're giving Bush a grade that would indicate that his Administration hasn't been shamelessly whoring for corporate interests. Bush apologists can point to these results and say, "See, Bush doesn't give Big Money everything they want" when in fact that's exactly what they're doing.