It is a mystery why the New York Times news editors keep producing "news" stories that ignore what innumerable articles and the Times' own coverage revealed months ago. The latest example is Sheryl Gay Stolberg's reporting on the White House efforts to reassure Americans that the stimulus bill, passed only three months ago, will gradually save or create a substantial number of jobs.
With unemployment now at 9.4 percent and still rising, it's understandable that both the White House and voters would be concerned about how effective and rapid the stimulus will be. People are hurting and they need help, especially jobs, now.
But the Times article proceeds to quote disingenuous Republican criticism of the stimulus' progress without mentioning their party's destructive role, reported in numerous news articles, in making sure the stimulus would be smaller, slower and less effective than it should have been. Instead we read this dishonest framing from Republican flacks:
"The Obama administration is continuing to fabricate job creation numbers related to the stimulus," Tony Fratto, a deputy press secretary in the Bush administration, said in an e-mail message to reporters. He added, "Their so-called models would not stand the light of day."
And this misdirection from Eric Cantor:
"The administration looks dramatically out of touch as they highlight the creation of temporary summer employment in the face of job losses unseen in decades, record unemployment and massive deficits," said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House Republican whip.
And this whining misrepresentation from John Boehner:
"When they passed this spending plan, Democrats said it would immediately create jobs," said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, "yet nearly four months later, unemployment has continued to climb and none of their rosy predictions have come true."
The Times neglects to mention that all but three Republicans (Snowe and Collins, with Specter having since renamed himself a Democrat) voted against the stimulus. It doesn't mention these same Republicans did everything they could to discredit the idea of a stimulus bill, to restrict and water down job-creating spending, and to divert limited stimulus dollars to ineffective tax breaks for people who not only didn't need them but who, as the Times' own economic Nobel Laureate predicted, used the tax breaks to pay down their debts and rebuild their savings.
Nor does the Times mention that Republicans essentially vetoed more funds to help states avoid immediate and massive layoffs and/or tax cuts that would produce a collective anti-stimulus. The opportunity to have an immediate impact on jobs was that feature, but Republicans demanded it be whittled down. California, anyone?
The quoted Republicans lament the fact that Americans are losing their jobs. But the Times doesn't mention that these same Republicans adamantly opposed providing temporary unemployment benefits to people whose hours were being cut back and vetoed the Administration's proposal to provide temporary Medicare benefits to those who lost their jobs and health care.
Nor does the Times inform its readers that the substantial increase in personal savings we've seen explains why the Republican's newly recovered alarm over deficit spending is misplaced.
And apparently, there's no connection between this story and the fact that the most clueless conservative Republican governors -- Ms. Palin comes to mind -- continue to argue against stimulus spending, complain about deficits (when that's what stimulus spending is) and continue to complain that the stimulus bill is forcing them to help their own citizens who have lost their jobs, health care and homes during the recession.
"Why, oh why, can't we have a better press corps" -- Brad Delong, et al.
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