Bad economy, failed foreign policy and now a
major scandal. Bush really did hit the trifecta!

Ed Pankus selectively offers some self-serving reports from the White House's "Overview of the Economy." http://www.bea.gov/bea/glance.htm Then Ed jumps about with the wide-eyed pep of a pompom girl and trills:

"Hey, Mike! Do you want the bad news first for your party faithful? I know it's good news for the average guy, but the liberal wing of the Democratic party needs the economy to tank to have any message to run on next year in the general election. Sorry about the bad news..." [Ellipses in original, as Ed's sugar rush trailed off.]

Put down those pompoms for a minute and think. If you really understood "the bad news" you would see that it's bad news for "the average guy" - despite celebrations from the fat cats you blindly serve.

With a microscopic 1% prime rate and record government spending we should see surging employment, record income levels, and 6% growth. Not evaporating employment and weak real growth. This puts into perspective the "good news" you think you see:

The temporary spike in investment as the wealthy elite cash in on special tax favors. The 3.3% growth rate for a single quarter, undermined by over 2 years of runaway job losses. Nearly 3 million jobs gone forever. Calling this underwhelming data from this dishonest administration "good news for the average guy" is a sick joke.

Instead of real recovery Bush gave us rising poverty, falling income, and other dismal data. All this despite pedal to the metal low interest rates and hyper-Keynesian deficit spending far beyond anything ever seen in US history.

The Republican-led Federal Reserve Board slashed interest rates to 1%. Just this year, Bush and his rubber-stamp Republican Congress unleashed nearly half a trillion dollars in reckless borrow and spend profligacy we'll have to pay back with interest. Not half a million, not half a billion. HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS.

That's no typo. In our name, Bush and the right wing Republicans borrowed nearly HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS this year alone. Close to $500,000,000,000.00 borrowed and spent, but this Bush economy is still like a body in a hospital bed. The doctors pump it full of adrenalin and jolt it with electro-shocks hoping to restart the heart. Nothing works. This economy is flat-lining.

The data from the Census, even from the Congressional Budget Office, show the truth. Bush turned surpluses into deficits and transformed a robust, job-creating economy into the mess we see today. Despite Herculean efforts to invigorate it, the Bush economy remains anemic. Good luck running on the ruined wreck Bush made of the Clinton Boom. Or the mess Bush made of Iraq.

Bush's failed foreign policy, founded on lies, arrogance and foolishness, is costing us hundreds of $billions we don't have and squandering the lives of our troops. That's bad enough, but now we learn someone in the White House - most likely Bush's Brain Karl Rove - illegally jeopardized our national security in retaliation against a former ambassador.

The White House scrambles to cover up this Rove-inspired retaliation meant to cover up the pre-war lies still making Americans die. Each day more Americans understand your pathetic party is led by traitors (in the words of GHW Bush) who expose CIA agents, cannot protect us from harm, cannot run the economy, and cannot tell the truth.