President Bush vs. Words
April 30, 2008 — wickleJust a quick post today … sorry, it’s been one of those days.
I was listening to President Bush carefully referring to the economic “slowdown” as he denied that there’s any chance that this is a recession, and I was thinking … he likes to parse things, doesn’t he? Mostly, he likes to deny the applicability of bad-sounding words.
For example, he prefers to call waterboarding, which is clearly torture and for which we prosecuted Japanese troops after the Second World War, and “aggressive interrogation technique.”
When different factions are fighting for control of Iraq, he was very insistent that it wasn’t a civil war, though what the difference would be was pretty unclear.
He wanted to rename suicide bombers as “homicide bombers,” perhaps because people who use trucks or time-delays have purposes other than homicide for setting their bombs.
Rather than “prisoners of war,” we’re somehow now capturing “enemy combatants caught on the battlefield.”
I know, the term “recession” refers to a specific economic situation, and it’s very possible for the situation to be unpleasant for people without fitting the technical definition of a recession. In those times, I suggest not trying to nit-pick the definition and simply concede that it’s as bad as — or worse than — a recession and move on, rather than trying to pick the concern apart. With massive inflation in the food and fuel markets, incomes not keeping pace, and no end in sight, no one cares whether we’re technically in a recession. It’s bad out here in the real world. But to top it off, it’s rather likely that we are in fact, in a recession. It’s hard to tell until afterwards, because of that definition. But virtually every leading indicator is bad right now.
President Bush, though, doesn’t like to acknowledge that bad things happen. At least, not with those words.
I wonder how he would reword it if I said that he is clearly deep in denial.
May 1, 2008 at 12:01 am
Don’t forget about this one:
May 1, 2008 at 7:57 am
You’re right! I can’t believe I missed that one!
I realize that Bill Clinton had issues with the meaning of the word “is,” but this has become utterly ridiculous!
May 1, 2008 at 10:20 am
Wickle I won’t try to change your mind but feel moved to say something. The legalese of enemy combatant is true enough. It is found in the Hague Convention and elsewhere. We are not in a declared war although that brings no solace to the dead and wounded. Lastly kind of tied to both. The combatants we’re encountering in Iraq and Afghanistan are not aligned to any nation therefore POW and the relative protections and definitions don’t apply.
As for the the win/lose point. He is right since he has a responsibility to stay positive and sadly he has information you and I don’t and likely won’t have for some time.
On the economy I watched the press conference yesterday. He painfully uttered the R word and deferred to the pending report which technically bails him out. .6% or something like it. It is widely accepted that one of the things that complicate recession is consumer confidence. Having Bush screaming in the Rose Garden “Buy Gold,stuff your mattresses with cash and stockpile food “!!!! isn’t very Presidential.
On a side note how you like Hucks chiming in on Obama/Wright.
May 1, 2008 at 5:48 pm
You may find this educational.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/press-and-politicians-prematurely-crying-recession/
According to the National Bureau of Economic Research: “A recession is defined to be a period of two quarters of negative GDP growth.”
Our current GDP is growing at an estimated 0.6%.
As you can see from the chart at the link below, the last-quarter 2007 GDP was the same as the first-quarter 2008 GDP. This doesn’t meet the criteria for a “recession.”
http://bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=1&FirstYear=2006&LastYear=2008&Freq=Qtr
May 2, 2008 at 12:13 am
The problem is the desire to parse. I don’t mind a President trying to stay positive, but it would be nice if he indicated that he had a grip on reality. As I said, even if there isn’t technically a recession, things can be bad. No one really cares whether the economy grew or shrank. Real income plummeted. The economic growth was largely the result of increased consumer spending, which was almost entirely due to higher prices on food and fuel. It’s hard to argue that that’s particularly healthy.
Oh, well …
As for Huckabee … sigh … My gracious version of the answer is that honest people can sometimes look at the same information and come to different conclusions. I disagree with the governor on this one.
Having said that, I really haven’t followed the events of the past couple days between Wright and Obama. They seem to be taking jabs at each other, but I really haven’t kept up.
May 2, 2008 at 12:44 am
You are nit-picking Bush’s words when he is using accurate vocabulary for an economic situation and then you turn around and say that definitions don’t matter?
I guess it has been one of those days.
Also, I am wondering if you are going to post my original comment. Some of your readers might like to know what a recession actually is and why we are not in one.
May 3, 2008 at 10:43 am
RedPill - in response to your first post - You will note that I made mention of the formal definition of a recession in my original post, and said that it was more or less irrelevant to normal people. I haven’t changed my position on that.
As a matter of fact, I did already know the definition. It came up in passing while working on my degree in economics.
However, my comment remains what I said to Alfie –
As I said, even if there isn’t technically a recession, things can be bad. No one really cares whether the economy grew or shrank. Real income plummeted. The economic growth was largely the result of increased consumer spending, which was almost entirely due to higher prices on food and fuel. It’s hard to argue that that’s particularly healthy.
Anyway … no, I didn’t approve my moderated comments as quickly as usual. For one thing, there’s timing. For another, there’s been this surge of gambling spam that has drained a lot of my moderation-queue time. You might consider getting over yourself. The world isn’t out to get you. You hit the filter for having two links (mine is set to 2+), and didn’t get approved until I had time to look at it.