As I was reviewing a Washington Post article I had read this weekend (for a post I wanted to write today), a paragraph seemed to inaccurately portray George W. Bush’s first year in office. Writer Scott Wilson held than taking a new tack and blaming his predecessor, President Obama is merely following in that Republican’s footsteps:
Upon entering the White House in 2001, Bush pinned the lackluster economy on his predecessor, using the “Clinton recession” to successfully argue in favor of tax cuts that won some Democratic support.
Now, I don’t recall ever reading then-President Bush blaming Clinton for the economic downturn in 2001. But, then again, my primary news source back then was the Los Angeles Times. Since the Post reporter took especial care to put the expression, “Clinton recession,” in quotation marks, the then-president (or his team) must have used it.
So, I searched the paper’s archives, but decided not to buy the one article using the expression, “Clinton Recession” from 2001, W’s first year in office. That reference was in an opinion piece, ” The Blame Game,” by E. J. Dionne, Jr., not always a reliable source for information on Republicans. And from what little information I can find on the article (without signing up for some service), it doesn’t appear W actually used the term.
As it stands right now, there are no news articles in Mr. Wilson’s paper reporting that Bush said what the reporter says he did. But, the Post is not the only source of information. For those of you with ready access to news databases from 2001 or with better web-sleuthing skills, could you let me know if, after he took office on January 20, 2001, Bush blamed Clinton for the economic downturn during his first year on the job.
If we can’t find anything, then a correction will certainly be in order. And we’ll have one more piece of evidence that George W. Bush, despite his many flaws, had far more class than does his successor.
There was an Op-Ed in Business Week, back in 2004, where it’s implied that Bush pushed the Council of Economic Advisors to change the National Bureau of Economic Research’s March 2001 date back a year.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_08/b3871044.htm
This was apparently, according to liberal bloggers, a campaign ploy for the ’04 election.
According to a piece I found in Wikipedia, the NBER has said that they put their date for the beginning of the recession too late.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_2000s_recession
The best that I can find is that Bush never called it a “Clinton Recession” and apparently unnamed Republicans did. I’m actually finding the term used more on the liberal blogs, myself.
No doubt you’ll be facing posts from arrogant know-it-alls, like boob, swearing that Clinton had nothing to do with it and was just a spectator in the stands.
GWB declines to criticize Obama. Showing more class than certain other ex-presidents one could name. as well as the BDS sufferers on the left.
(And, no, troll-boys, Bush declining to criticize Obama doesn’t mean we are obligated to do the same. Republican presidents do not become cult-leaders like Democrats do.)
I wouldn’t say unnamed, Sean Hannity has often said that Bush inherited an economic downturn/recession from Clinton. I am pretty sure he used the term Clinton Recession but he is a radio/tv host and not an elected offical.
I was a little too young in 2001 to be aware, like 14
I would find it curious if Bush did use the term. He has the view that one Pope does not criticize another Pope or the Papacy. He said in his first speech since leaving office that he will not criticize Obama. Meanwhile, Obama is blaming everything in sight on the mess from the last eight years which he has to bear with the extra diligence of a Messiah maintaining his dignity. As Obama’s fantasy world is intruded upon by more and more reality, I fully expect him to start calling Bush by name and to be specific in his mud slinging. Liberals are like that. When Gibbs attacks by name, it is the President he is speaking for.
There was a lot of controversy about when the recession actually started. Even after it was determined it started during the Clinton Administration I never heard President Bush himself use the term “Clinton Recession” but a lot of prominent Republicans did.
#4 – Please name those “prominent Republicans.” Otherwise I call BS on your assertion.
Regards,
Peter H.
Looks like the “Clinton Recession” meme was started by Dick Cheney, then got pick up by Newt and Hannity et al. Bush very well may never had said the line “Clinton Recession”, but then again, he didn’t need to. It was already out there.
Source, for what it’s worth – Media Matters. They’re often loony, but this sounds about right.
My take? The fundamentals of any recession are put into place long before the recession happens. It is not necessarily wrong to pin some responsibility on the previous president, be it Bush or Clinton. The pin that pricked the DotCom bubble, causing it to burst, was the lawsuit filed by the the DOJ against Microsoft in 1998. That is what started the loss of over exuberant confidence in the tech sector, and started the two year slide that ended in the 2000 recession. So yes, Bush inherited a recession that was cause by economic conditions set up during the previous administration, and Obama inherited a recession that was building to inevitability during the Bush years. That said, you have to also recognize that, in a free market economy, many of the mechanisms that create the conditions for economic downturns are far beyond the scope and control of the person who happens to be president.
#6 – Media Matters is owned and operated by George Soros, and also is affiliated with HuffPo, DK and DU.
Not a reliable source. Period.
Regards,
Peter H.
A little help for Lee:
and…
And Donald Evans, Bush’s Secretary of Commerce talking about the recession…
And then there’s this.
IMO his is kind of a useless post. The blame game can be played all day long without any real enlightenment or thought provoking info or ideas being shared back and forth. Can we find something more pertinent to discuss?
(and yes, I know, I’ve played the game too, so I’m a hypocrite).
That’s a stupid argument and you know it. Liberals use that same argument to discount Fox News and the WSJ “It’s owned by (evil) Robert Murdoch”, or better yet, any scientist who disagrees with the catastrophic Global Warming dogma is labeled a tool of “Big Oil”. In each case, it’s the accuracy of the information that matters, not the source.
#9 – “That’s a stupid argument and you know it.”
Au contraire, mon SonicGrenouille. NewsBusters.org has compiled a veritable treasure trove of incorrect (read: fake but accurate) information that the Soros-owned-and-funded Media Matters has spewed.
And the attempt to compare Soros vs Murdoch is tenuous at best. Soros is a multi-millionaire Marxist who has not only brought down one government through his shady business deals (UK Prime Minister John Major in the 1990s), but also has invested leftist groups like Media Matters, MoveOn.org and others with plenty of capital to try and besmirch anyone who dares oppose him, i.e. Bush, Cheney, Rove et al.
Murdoch has been a fair business owner who gave money to both Hillary Clinton and John McCain during the 2008 primaries (I forget if he gave any to The Snob or not). And he also does not allow his own personal predilections to shade any news put out by Sky News, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal or the Sunday Times of London. He is not agenda-driven the way Soros is.
Regards,
Peter H.
#8 – So in other words, you have an indirect reference to a recession by a VP after a loaded question from a moderator, an admitted conservative talk-show host who references the “Clinton recession” but who himself is neither elected nor a Republican, and a former Commerce Secretary’s prepared remarks.
I’ll grant Don Evans’ remarks as being only ONE Republican who mentioned “the Clinton recession,” but the other two are moot. And there is no mention at all of GWB using the phrase “inherited recession” or “Clinton recession.”
One out of three. After eight years of GWB’s presidency. It pales in comparison to what The Snob has been saying for less than three months.
Regards,
Peter H.
And gee, News Busters has never been wrong or spun a story to match it’s POV. Here’s another Oopsie. Once again, it’s the accuracy of the information that matters, not the source.
Guys, thanks for helping me address this issue. I do appreciate it.
It seems the answer to the question I post in the title is “No.” As that title indicates, I’m looking for Bush’s comments in the first year of W’s presidency. So far, no one has come forward with anything even remotely suggesting that the then-president blamed his predecessor for the economic downturn he inherited.
It would indeed appear that Bush himself did not use the term, but he didn’t dissuade members of his administration from continuing the meme. And, many many conservative, even those who have been critical of Bush’s economic policies, have used that phrase. Ooops.
Ooops. There should have been a smiley face at the end. The ribbing is all in good fun.
the point remains though, did they use it in 2001 . . . did Bush, as his successor, denounce his predecessor in his first months in office.
And so far there is no evidence that he had nor did members of his Administration . . .
Because, unlike Bush, Clinton had a hostile Republican congress through most of his presidency. Conversely, Bush had a complicit Republican congress through most of his presidency…..that’s that big difference.
#18 – And pray tell, Kevvie, what the hell does that have to do with anything? Quit trying to change the subject and answer the question.
Which, by the way, is NO. And I think it has been sufficiently proven on this thread.
Regards,
Peter H.
Tacking a last bit onto a dead thread.
Bush did talk down the economy during his transition period, and that could be construed as trying to lay blame on Clinton. But he wasn’t blaming Clinton per se., I believe he was calling it as he saw it, accurately as it turns out. Bush has never gone out of his way to dispel the notion of a “Clinton Recession”, nor has he chastised those in his administration who have used the term.
That said, the reporter should retract his assertion (fat chance) and I do think Bush, on the whole, is a classier guy than Obama. But they both such fiscally.
Link for last post
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/12/19/politics/main258392.shtml
So if by ‘the reporter’ you mean Dan, ‘retract his assertion’ means ‘stop telling the truth’. Gotcha.
Gee, I had to look all the way down to the first hit on Google for this from the National Review Online:
The first major article posted on the Media Matters website is an attempted exposé of the often-heard conservative claim that the last economic recession began during the Clinton administration — or, in other words, that it was already underway when George W. Bush took office in 2001. The article painstakingly traces the history of this claim through numerous statements by Bush administration officials and conservative commentators, presenting all this as a “successful three-and-a-half year media campaign” that has led to polling results showing “62% of Americans think the recession began under Clinton.”
oldguy, please read the title of the post. I’m not asking for conservative claims about a Clinton recession, I’m asking whether then-President George W. Buh used the term.
Can you provide such a reference?
Thanks.