Favorite Moments Two favorite moments from Bush’s press conference last night come to mind. The first was already alluded to by AB’s post from last night. (“Something will pop into my head…”) The second is this one, which I’ll simply reproduce straight from the transcript: Q. Mr. President, Why are you and the vice president […]

Jesus H. … Read. Laugh. Weep for your country. Ok, then. AB P.S. No, this is not from The Onion.

Tomahawk = Lawyer? Ashcroft on Tuesday: Mr. Ashcroft said that to the contrary, he personally went to the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, on March 7, 2001, and urged her to scuttle what he characterized as an ineffective policy of the Clinton administration specifying that Mr. bin Laden had to be captured, and only in […]

What, No Press Conference Post in Real Time? READER: Hey, Angry Bear, where’s your real-time commentary on Bush’s press conference? ME: Sorry, I’m out of ideas at the moment. “I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it.” But, “… something will pop into my […]

Consumer Confidence and Consumer Spending, Part II Today the Commerce Department reported rapidly rising retail sales in March. Some read this as renewed evidence that the recovery is roaring ahead. The bond market is dutifully plunging in response. Note one interesting thing: this follows closely on the heels of several reports that consumer confidence has […]

Bush’s Approval Ratings Perhaps surprisingly, Bush’s approval ratings have held roughly constant over the past month. The chart below shows the running average of 10 national polls from January 1 of this year to today, with 95% confidence bands. (For context, take a look at this post about Bush’s approval ratings on the American Street.) […]

The Daily Show Not having sufficiently debased itself by endorsing Joe Lieberman, The New Republic has now hired a new TV critic, Lee Siegel. His (her?) first target: Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show — a show that regular readers know I regularly cite: To be honest, I was never a huge fan of Stewart’s humor, […]

Does Bad Data Explain the Unusual Recovery? From last week’s Economist (subscription required): DESPITE the welcome leap in American employment in March (see article), America’s job market has been surprisingly weak in the past couple of years—surprising, at least, to economists. Some have explained this by pointing to rapidly rising productivity figures. Perhaps firms have […]

Bush to Discuss Iraq The White House just announced that Bush will hold a press conference on Tuesday evening to discuss Iraq. That gives reporters 24 hours to come up with some good questions. Here’s my suggestion to get the ball rolling: 1. “Is the occupation of Iraq going about as you expected it, or […]

Good Analogy Here’s what a CBSMarketwatch article about this week’s upcoming CPI release said regarding the potential danger for inflation that it may or may not show: WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) — Imagine coming across an apartment building where half of the residents are shouting fire and throwing their possessions from their windows and the other half […]