First draft of letter to NPR on misleading segment Sunday AM

Editorial advice welcome!

Dear Weekend Edition Sunday,

Your segment “Bush ratings slow to follow improving economy” was misleading due to lack of context. Washington Post reporter Jonathan Weisberg alluded to “3 months of robust job growth” not helping President Bush in the polls, and Liane Hansen concluded that “voters are reluctant to judge the economy by statistics.” Perhaps the voters see these numbers in a broader context than Weisberg and Hansen. In the first three years of the Bush presidency, more than three million jobs were lost in America. In the first half of his fourth year, the nation has regained fewer than a third of the total jobs lost on his watch. This hardly suffices to reverse voters’ negative judgment of Bush’s economic performance.

CYD

the rw'ers love doing that . . .

point out under clinton, 11 million jobs were created in 4 years (based on 22 million in 8).

therefore, bush *should* have created 11 million, but lost a net of 2 million, therefore the net effect is that we're 13 million jobs short on his watch!!