Noting that policies like the stimulus plan tend to poll pretty badly, New York Times reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg writes (7/16/10) that Obama says he has pursued such policies because they’re “the right thing to do for America.” To Stolberg, that sounds familiar:
It is an argument that sounds eerily similar to the one Mr. Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush, made to justify an unpopular war in Iraq as he watched his own poll numbers sink lower. Mr. Bush and his aides often felt they could not catch a break; when the economy was humming along–or at least seemed to be humming along–the Bush White House never got credit for it, because the public was so upset about the war.
Two things.
One, I think we can all agree that efforts to stimulate the economy are actually nothing at all like the invasion of Iraq.
Two, the “humming” Bush economy? Now that actually sounds familiar…. Where have we heard the argument that Bush wasn’t getting enough credit for his economic boom? Oh yeah–that was from Sheryl Gay Stolberg of the New York Times:
NYT Falls for White House Spin on Economy
No one ‘envies’ Bush GDP record1/28/08
The New York Times (1/28/08) claimed in a front-page story that George W. Bush’s economic growth record “would be the envy of most presidents.” This claim has no basis in fact and should be corrected by the newspaper.
The assertion was part of a “White House Memo” by Sheryl Gay Stolberg. Opening with the question, “Will George W. Bush be remembered as the president who lost the economy while trying to win a war?,” she continued:
Mr. Bush has spent years presiding over an economic climate of growth that would be the envy of most presidents. Yet much to the consternation of his political advisers, he has had trouble getting credit for it, in large part because Americans were consumed by the war in Iraq.
As that alert noted, this was not the first time Stolberg had tried to applaud the Bush boom:
More than a year ago (7/12/06), Stolberg described Bush as “blessed with a growing economy but facing voters who do not give him much credit for it.” She claimed that “by standard measurements, the economy does look good,” citing “a gross domestic product that grew an average of 4 percent in the past three years.”
As Dean Baker wrote in response to Stolberg’s 1/28/08 piece: “President Bush’s growth record is better than his father’s, but it is worse than the record of every other president in the last half century. It’s not clear why they would be envious.”
It’s troubling that Stolberg seems so peculiarly wedded to this idea.
One, I think we can all agree that efforts to stimulate the economy are actually nothing at all like the invasion of Iraq.
Well, they are alike in that they’re both intended for the personal profit of those at the top at the expense of everyone else.
Stolberg always takes her frames from the right and her reporting is problematic. I first noticed a few years ago in a story she wrote about Bush (& Cheney) and executive privilege, which concluded that the president and vice president would have strong claims to EP.
I was puzzled. The story had been forwarded to me by an editor for whom I’d been researching that very topic, and based on two weeks of digging into the history of EP, I couldn’t see how she got to that conclusion–especially for the VP. So I looked at the article again.
Seven quoted sources. The lone Democrat was Chuck Schumer. All the other six were Republicans–and not just Republicans, but political hacks. Bush, Ari Fleischer, a campaign strategist, etc.
Not a single judge. Not a single Constitutional scholar.
I was amazed that it had passed the Times’ editors, but I was much more naive at the time.
@eupdia
Have you ever taken note of the same situation with journalists having a liberal agenda in mind?
For ever 1 article slanted to the right, there are 100 slanted to the left…
Corporate press strikes again! Since the NYT can’t tell the truth, then baffle the public with BS!