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PrintJune 12, 2009
When does the Big O 'own' the economy?
To date, Barack Obama has taken responsibility for the economy ... and handed it directly to the Bush administration. But when does the Big O 'own' the economy? When will folks decide that, having spent trillions of dollars and left them and their children and grandchildren swimming in red ink, Obama is now responsible?
Now, according to at least one marker.
And it comes from an unlikely source.
Writing in the New York Times, Peter Baker notes that the unemployment of 9.4 percent exceeds the 8.0 percent peak that Obama had predicted if Congress passed his economic stimulus plan, which as Baker notes, "lawmakers dutifully did."
So, the official unemployment rate is already well above where Obama promised it would be at its worst. And, according to Reuters, "another gauge of labor market slack that measures both the unemployed, people working part-time for economic reasons and those only marginally attached to the labor force hit a record high of 16.4 percent in May from 15.8 percent in April."
Baker even questions Obama's oft-repeated boast that he has 'created or saved' 150,000 jobs. "White House claims about “saved” jobs are hard to document."
And he notes:
"(A)t a certain point, a new president assumes ownership of the problems and finds himself answering for his own actions. For Mr. Obama, even some advisers say that moment may be coming soon ... it was his administration that set the expectation that his policy would keep it from deepening as far as it has."
And Baker writes that, at some point, Obama must even accept ownership for his foreign policy:
"The forceful position toward Israel that Mr. Obama has adopted in recent weeks over settlement expansion may also make the Palestinian conflict more and more his own problem."
As troubling as such observations must be for the Obamatons, even more worrisome should be the source.
If the New York Times begins reporting the facts, rather than merely echoing the Obama spin, will the rest of the legacy media follow?
Or is this no more than a token attempt to appear objective?
