Democrats "Bad News" Streak Continues
December 15, 2003
First off, the Democrats' bad-news streak just keeps coming, just keeps going, just keeps adding up. Listen to this: “Single family housing starts rose to a fresh record high in November, as persistently low mortgage rates fueled strong demand for housing, a government report showed on Tuesday. Democrats' bad news streak continues, Number 2: U.S. consumer prices took an unexpected tumble last month.” Now, this is written for a Rio Linda type audience. This is a Reuters story, and it's hoped that that will be thought of as bad news, tumble, economic, bad. No. U.S. consumer prices, what is this "unexpected" business? Who knows when anything is going to happen? What is this, unexpected?
Let me read this as it should be. Brought on by the Bush tax cuts as everybody expected, U.S. consumer prices tumbled last month, as the cost of energy, clothing, furniture and lodging all fellows was expected, according to a government report. It showed underlying inflation running at a nearly 38-year low, and that means it's been running low for a long time. This could have been expected. Nothing unexpected about this news. It's disappointing to a lot of Democrats. Nothing unexpected.
Democrat bad news streak, Number 3: “U.S. chain store sales rebounded as shoppers came out in droves after the snowstorm in the northeast largely halted retail business for a few days.” Survey taking by ICSC. What the hell is that? I'm sorry, what the heck is that, International Council of Shopping Centers. “Survey taken by the International Council of Shopping Centers showed that 23% of consumers have not yet even begun their holiday shopping, suggesting that buying patterns could pick up substantially in the coming weeks.”
Democrat bad news streak continues, Number 4: “Employers nationwide cautiously optimistic about demand for their products and services and thus plan to hire more workers in the first quarter of the year, according to a survey by staffing company Manpower, Incorporated.” This is all expected news, my friends, because the Bush tax cut, rising and roiling economy, the stock markets continuing on their general upward trend. The chairman and CEO of Manpower, Jeffrey Joerres, said there's more confidence that employers are showing than previously. It's still not robust, but it's steady, and it is improving.
Democrat bad news streak continues, Number 5: "The capture of Saddam Hussein boosted President Bush's job approval rating, gave Americans new confidence in U.S. military efforts in Iraq, according to a poll released yesterday. Bush approval number was at 58% on Sunday, the day that news of Saddam's capture broke, up from 52% the day before." That's an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. 76% of those polled said the U.S. is likely to succeed in Iraq. That's up from 72% before the capture was disclosed. By a margin of 62 to 32%, that's almost double, 62 to 32% the poll's respondents said the war in Iraq had made the U.S. more secure. Take that, Howard. Take that, Algore. I'm wondering who wrote that portion of Dean's speech? It sounds like Dean, but I mean Dean and Gore, it could have been a collaborative effort. More on that in a moment. 52% agreed and 43% disagreed with the statement that the war in Iraq had made the U.S. more secure. In September it was 52-43, now it's 62-32.
Yeah, really, really good news. And Democrat bad news streak continues, Number 6: U.S. special envoy James A. Baker with his usual green tie kicked off a European mission Tuesday to win support for Iraq's reconstruction from some of the staunchest opponents of the Iraq war starting with France. Baker said he had very fruitful, which is an interesting word to use describing talks with the French, very fruitful talks with French president Jacques Chirac on the need for reducing Iraq's billions of dollars in debt to give its people a chance for freedom and prosperity. Meanwhile, Dominique de Villepin insisted Monday France's willingness to forgive Iraqi debts was unrelated to the tussle over contracts saying let's not mix up the different subjects.
Wait a minute. Democrats claim that this would hurt the effort, didn't they, that forgiving the debt would hurt the effort or, no, that Baker going would hurt the effort. Which is it? Oh, yeah, we're never going to get the money if we don't let the French and Germans in on the contract, and here the Germans have already forgiven some of the Iraqi debt, and I said yesterday, they did this before Baker got there so as to avoid an appearance in the world of being pressured by James A. What? [program observer] The French and will Germans it's interchangeable, change the tong and you've got the same people. Did I say German? French? It's the same thing. The French wanted to do this before James Baker showed up in his green tie. He always wears a green tie. First time I ever saw him and today, he's wearing a green tie. But, at any rate, they just didn't want to make it look like on the world stage that they had buckled to pressure from the Bush administration.
Democrat bad streak continues, Number 7: "U.S. technology industry showing healthy growth for the first time since parts of the Internet sector collapsed two-years ago. Jobs and wages are still, down the Bush administration says, new report on the digital economy. 'This isn't another train coming, this really is the light at the end of the tunnel,' said Phil Bond, undersecretary for technology at the commerce department."
So the upshot of all this is that what's good for America is bad for the Democrats. There's a lot of good stuff going on for America out there, folks, just keeps adding up, and equals a bad news streak for the Democrats. |
