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So did Herbert Hoover.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.ht.../hines/2079091
Sept. 2, 2003, 9:08PM Meanwhile, back at the White House By CRAGG HINES Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle PRESIDENT Bush, returning to Washington from the ranch, finds himself in a very unattractive position: militarily overextended abroad and economically underperforming at home. It's not clear which more imperils his re-election, but neither is, shall we say, on the plus side. Guns and butter, you'll recall, can be a volatile mix. If the growing mess in Iraq isn't quite Vietnamesque, Bush's response to joblessness in the United States is beginning to look a bit like Nixon-Kissinger floundering. Bush stopped by Ohio on Labor Day to tell workers that he has what is basically a secret plan for the economy. When a president loses about 3 million jobs in 31 months in office and the best idea he can lay on a union crowd is his intention to create an assistant secretary of Commerce for manufacturing, well, it may be time for a little shake-up in his domestic or economic team or, more basically, in his own thought process. Unless the next few months see astounding growth in employment, Bush will be the first president since one-termer and fellow Republican Herbert Hoover to lose jobs. On the flight to Ohio, Bush should have communed with the spirit of the late Ohio Republican governor, James A. Rhodes. Asked what the three biggest issues in one of his campaigns would be, Rhodes replied unhesitatingly: "Jobs, jobs and jobs." Although Bush was in a state that he carried narrowly in 2000, almost certainly must win if he is to be re-elected and has lost an estimated 200,000 non-farm jobs since his inauguration, there was not much urgency in his remarks. Even in the face of pelting rain, Bush was upbeat: "The economy is beginning to grow, and that's what I'm interested in. I believe there are better days ahead." So did Herbert Hoover. Perhaps Bush is either not yet desperate over the economy, or, at any rate, does not want to look desperate. At least over the holiday weekend, there was none of his father's plangent, "The message: I care. We're trying," from 11 years ago. But just in case, Bush might be practicing some lines from his father's "mea culpa" New Hampshire tour on Jan. 15, 1992. "I've been wrong about how fast this recovery would take," Bush-41 said. "I have not done a good job in getting people to understand we've had a growth agenda ... . I can do better." Those are already sentiments that Bush-43 could repeat with complete assurance that they are explicitly, painfully true today. As part of what may be a 12-step program to re-election, the incumbent made a very tentative start on a very long road. While certainly not apologizing for his multiple "leave no millionaire behind" tax cuts, Bush conceded: "We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts, government has got to move." That may sound routinely anodyne, but remember, please, it is not a sentiment shared by some of the president's supporters, including some of his fellow Republicans in Congress. Surely, they argue, any so-called "hurt" can be seen to by a private-sector vendor. Bush was not exquisitely clear about what could be a key section of his Labor Day remarks, assuming he's willing to move on the point. Some of the thousands of jobs in manufacturing have been lost "because production moved overseas," Bush observed. Then he said that in international trade, "we intend to keep the rules fair." Bush was talking, elliptically but primarily, about China. And he was picking up on a point that several Democratic challengers have been speaking about for weeks: The refusal of China to let its currency float free of the dollar, a position that makes its manufactured goods a bargain against U.S.-made products. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow is in Beijing this week to discuss the issue with Chinese officials. Good luck. Snow was welcomed by a piece in the government-run China Daily that said: "China's currency, unfortunately, is in a position of finding itself involved in the finger-wagging sessions that accompany (the U.S. presidential election) ... Should China now give in to pressure only to face dire consequences later? No way." In Bush's remarks in Ohio, there was a line that may provide a window onto the problem. Perhaps it was just a rhetorical device; perhaps it was more. "They tell me it was a shallow recession," Bush said. "They tell me?" Is that the once-removed sort of manner in which a president should be speaking of what happened to the economy on his watch. It's an invitation to voters to tell him something more directly on Election Day. As the headline on a New York Times editorial said after Bush-41's January 1992 visit to New Hampshire: "Stay the course. What Course?" |
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