Until tonight I had thought fairly well of Larry Sabato. But tonight I actually saw and heard him on Fox News state with a completely straight face and in apparent sincerity that the President could help his re-election chances by returning some of his campaign contributions to the donors with the stipulation that the donor use the returned money to create a few new jobs.
I repeat: With a completely straight face and in apparent sincerity.
And everything else he had to say - which wasn't that much - reached about that depth.
That really doesn't surprise me, sad to say. I've been on his E-mail list for over a year, and while I believe that he actually does attempt to be bias-free, he is not. Every E-mail I've gotten for the last month or more has mentioned the allegedly "dismal" job picture. Here is the latest:
Not so for George W. Bush's nadir. Bush's ratings have come crashing down to earth, headed for basement level, in the first quarter of 2004. The President is at the nadir of his administration, viewed from the perspective of public popularity. Bush-bashing by all the Democrats and the press has taken a toll, as has the dismal jobs picture. Do you think the President ever daydreams about deriving a little pleasure from the pain of consistent mis-predictions by his team, perhaps by calling all his economic advisers into the Oval Office and firing them one by one? He could go to the Rose Garden and announce he had outsourced their jobs--say, to Ohio. His popularity would soar, at least briefly, and who could blame him for banishing these dismal scientists whose forecasting records are worse than the most inaccurate meteorologists?
If 5.6% unemployment is "dismal", then what would he term the unemployment situation in Germany, or France, or even that which existed in the US under Jimmy Carter?
In fact, if you go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you find that a 5.6% unemployment rate is actually EQUAL to the MEDIAN rate in the US from 1990. Who knew that average was "dismal"? Only when a Republican is President.