For the Obama White House to go to war with Fox News over ACORN scandals was bizarre, in that it should have been beneath the purview of the Presidency.
For the Obama White House to go to war with Edmunds, the perennially dorky automobile folks, for their estimate that Cash-for-Clunkers brought in only 125,000 in car sales that would not otherwise have happened (==> $24,000 for each car that would not have otherwise sold) was petty and peevish. Edmunds did the math. All the White House did was pout.
Now comes comic calculations of jobs saved and created by the Obama Stimulus, through creative mathematics operating upon raises given to existing federal and Quango staff.
My most favorite excerpt: At Southwest Georgia Community Action Council in Moultrie, Ga., director Myrtis Mulkey-Ndawula said she followed the guidelines the Obama administration provided. She said she multiplied the 508 employees by 1.84 — the percentage pay raise they received — and came up with 935 jobs saved. "I would say it's confusing at best," she said. "But we followed the instructions we were given."
My least favorite excerpt: Ed DeSeve, who oversees the stimulus at the White House, said the Head Start numbers "represent a few percent of all jobs reported" and said the problems would probably be balanced out by other errors that underreported jobs. So we don't expect any corrections to this data to meaningfully impact the total 640,000 direct jobs," DeSeve said.
I think that these behaviors should be noted. I think that this blog is an appropriate place to note them. This is part of American governance at this time and it should be noted and known.
Prior blog entries here have noted that the Obama Administration has concentrated its recovery funds where they will most immediately and directly improve the economic indices, rather than where they will actually promote recovery. We've also noted that very early in this administration, the economic statistical tables were re-stated back to 1929 in order to dramatize the messianic recovery that has not materialized.
Prior blog entries here have noted that the Obama Administration has concentrated its recovery funds where they will most immediately and directly improve the economic indices, rather than where they will actually promote recovery. We've also noted that very early in this administration, the economic statistical tables were re-stated back to 1929 in order to dramatize the messianic recovery that has not materialized.
Whether this constitutes paranoid transference, corrupt governance or politics as usual, I leave to others to discern.
photo, above: Anita Dunn, White House Communications Director - famous for quoting Mao Tse Tung to high-school students in a speech about freedom. She should read Christopher Hitchens' take on her other favorite philosopher, Mother Teresa.
