Saying that the administration "misread the economy" is an open door to a Super Dome-sized vacuum that the right wing noise machine will continuously fill until the end of the next presidential election. It is absolutely perfect for the kind of shit they pull. And, since there isn't any hope of real economic recovery before 2012, it just may come back to haunt Biden in a big way.

Already Krugman is -- correctly -- calling for Stimulus 2. Biden seems to be saying, "let's wait." And when the waiting's over, Biden will again say something like, "no one could have predicted that this would be a weak, jobless recovery," when economists like Krugman et al. have predicted that very thing.

Saying the administration "misread the economy" makes it sound like the White House chose an insufficient and/or inadequate course in response to the economic crisis. That's not what the VP was trying to say, but that's what a lot of people are going to hear.

Could that be much worse than saying "the subprime mortgage crisis was well contained" ad nasueum for about 10 months prior to a total f*cking meltdown?

i really dont want to honor this garbage by trying to parse it or even listeing to others try to parse it.

biden really insults (some) people's intelligence with BushCo shit like this...

the stimulus isnt big enough, fast enough -- in short -- effective enough... we need more of a stimulus, probably twice as much -- starting now.

get on the goddam stick, joe -- and please stop the bullshit.

EXACTLY WHAT NEILL SAID!

"Vice President Biden, then, seemed to stumble into a mistake...."

Who could of predicted?

Sounds exactly the right thing to say to me. Why would the right wing noise machine leap on these statements? The last thing the right wants is it to become the consensus that the government is spending too little rather than too much.

This is a pseudo-gaffe, it's something that looks like a gaffe but actually supports, rather than undermines, the correct agenda. I almost wonder if it wasn't accidental.

Squiggleslash: Sounds exactly the right thing to say to me. Why would the right wing noise machine leap on these statements?

The noise machine will not care at all about the context of the statement. [Remember "Al Gore says he invented the Internet"?] All they will use is those four words: "We misread the economy..." and they will fill in the rest.

For instance: "Obama 'misread the economy' with TRILLIONS OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS in bailout money. What will he 'misread' in his second term?"

I'd bet my house on it. And it's a pretty OK house, too.

Who could have predicted that the 'Senator from MasterCard' would be a goofball?

Hopefully in 2012 Obama will select a v.p. replacement who is an actual progressive and with real potential as a future president.

A better outcome would be Feingold-Sanders for a real change from the corporately owned government status quo.

As always, each morning I thank my god that John McCrap is not president!
As always, each morning I thank my god twice that Billary is not president!
I am still waiting for reasons to thank my god that Obama is the president... And I am not hopeful.

The TRUTH is he said "we, and everyone else, misread..." Get over this picky analysis...I'm frankly as sick and tired of the media knee jerk "let's call Biden a loose cannon" meme as I am the "Al Franken is a CLOWN" crap! And, you know, if anyone was HONEST...no one accurately assessed the situation with the economy...some came closer than other and seem to have a better sense of what is actually going on...but most out there pontificating on this whole issue have no frigging idea what they are talking about...

chrenson - I think after a few days of Biden being ridiculed with his words being characterized as implying we didn't spend enough, the RWNM might have problems with that. That's not to say they will not try, but if anything them trying will undermine their credibility even further. Pretty much everyone's noticing that the right are blatantly lying about everything right now. That's one of the reasons why their popularity continues to sink.

In the end, Biden's comments are going to help build a consensus for more spending. The right knows that, they know if they highlight the words then even if they try to twist them as meaning the opposite, people will ignore it and the lies will actually end up promoting the truth, and the consensus that'll end up being built will be for more spending.

And more spending is something the Republicans are terrified of for more reasons than you think. They're not against the public option because of any business reason, they know most of their supporters and most of the industry are in favor of it, they're against it because a government that supports healthcare is a more liberal government, and people will want liberal parties to run that government because they don't want essential services destroyed by people who don't support them.

Go ahead Limbaugh, make my day...

Attention 1600 - Elliot Spitzer has completed his mea culpas and is available - Send a jet and a limo.

I am much more concerned about Biden’s comments regarding Israel and Iran. It sounded almost Boltenesque.

Yer exactly right, Keith G -- wonder if benen'll go there -- tough one to tweak for the team, which seems to be a prime raison d'etrefer this blog...

when i saw biden basically clearing the goddam runway for the israeli bombers, i shit my pants.

but i am all cleaned up now and awaiting the "appropriate understanding" of what crazy joe meant to say...

Keith G is right about Biden's Iran comments. At this point, though, I don't listen to Biden with any seriousness. He is a poster boy for foot-in-mouth disease.

I love VP Biden, I really do . . . but he really does need to follow the President's example and know what he is talking about BEFORE he speaks!
===============================================

I keep hearing members of the media saying:

“President Obama said that if the economic stimulus bill was passed, unemployment would not go over 8%.”

One small problem with this statement . . . it is simply NOT TRUE.

As a public service, and since the media seems incapable of using “the Google”, I have done some RESEARCH to see WHAT is fueling this . . .

Here is what I found:

In a report issued by his economic advisors on January 10, 2009 (BEFORE Barack Obama was even sworn in as President), economic advisors Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein issued a report titled “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan”,

The VERY FIRST WORDS in the report are these:

“A key goal enunciated by the President-Elect concerning the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan is that it should save or create at least 3 million jobs by the end of 2010. For this reason, we have undertaken a preliminary analysis of the jobs effects of some of the prototypical recovery packages being discussed. Our analysis will surely evolve as we and other economists work further on this topic. The results will also change as the actual package parameters are determined in cooperation with the Congress.”

http://otrans.3cdn.net/45593e8ecbd339d074_l3m6bt1te.pdf

Got that? The report is a PRELIMINARY ANALYSIS of a PROTOTYPICAL PACKAGE which will EVOLVE. Could it be stated any more clearly than that?

Now, here is the statement that has somehow been taken out of this PRE- PRESIDENTIAL report and put into the President’s mouth, as if by magic:

“First, the likely scale of employment loss is extremely large. The U.S. economy has already lost nearly 2.6 million jobs since the business cycle peak in December 2007. In the absence of stimulus, the economy could lose another 3 to 4 million more. Thus, we are working to counter a potential job loss of at least 5 million. As Figure 1 shows, even with the large prototypical package, the unemployment rate in 2010Q4 is predicted to be approximately 7.0%, which is well below the approximately 8.8% that would result in the absence of the plan.

Second, as emphasized above, there is considerable uncertainty in our estimates: both the impact of the package on GDP and the relationship between higher GDP and job creation are hard to estimate precisely. . .”

Once again, it is CLEARLY STATED that these are ESTIMATES and LIKELY to be incorrect.

So why is the media, and many commenters here, pretending like the President predicted definitively that the stimulus would keep unemployment under 8% when he NEVER DID?

The unemployment rate in January 2009 was 7.6%, so CLEARLY nobody in there RIGHT MIND thought that the Stimulus package was going to be able to hold it under 8%. The stimulus bill wasn’t signed into law until mid February . . . the unemployment rate then was ALREADY 8.1%.

The bulk of the stimulus money has still NOT BEEN SPENT, so trying to decide how successful it has been is clearly a POLITICAL exercise, not an economic one.

I don’t have problem with those who criticize the President’s economic plans. But do so based on the TRUTH, not lies.

I think VPres. Biden remarks are geared more towards the growing unemployment rate. He doesn't say the stimulus wasn't needed or not working, but rather the damage to jobs was greater than people speculated.

Biden's statements are judged as mistakes before they are analyzed. Media should be looking into a context and reporting objective results.

Rather than go for a stimulus 2 (a la Krugman), I would appropriate every nickel out of already authorized budget (transportation, etc) and front load the heck out of public spending (a la Yglesias).

THANK YOU Darsan54! I watched the interview with Biden and he didn't 'stumble'. In CONTEXT he was talking about the unemployment rate and how fast it would grow (they first thought they wouldn't get to 9.5 until 2010). BIDEN has become the punching bag of both parties before they see/read what is REALLY said.

I'm with the guys upstairs -- Keith G, neill, etc -- Biden's making his regular hash of the jobs/stimulus/let's apologise, just in case... All of that is very small potatoes indeed, compared to his "let Israel do its thing on Iran; we won't interfere". *Just* what Obama needed, boarding the plane to Russia and unavailable for a quick mop-up and a gentle correction (of the 2x4 upside the head kind).

Sheesh... Biden's as lovable as they come, but he seems to open his mouth only when the feet need changing.

I think it's best not to try to understand what Biden says. He also threatened the Iraq government that American troops will withdraw faster if violence in Iraq increases, which was a direct contradiction to what Obama said when he committed to a slow withdrawal. As long as he has no say in decisions, and it seems clear that he does not, his sayings are irrelevant and ignorable.

In the end, Biden's comments are going to help build a consensus for more spending.

Oh, come on. When has a comment by Biden ever helped to build a consensus?

One of the critiques of the "stimulus" was that the money was not going to be spent soon enough. To date, about 8% of it has been spent, and only abut a third will be spent in 2009. If stimuli like this are effective (something I doubt), those critics who said the money was to be spent too late all foresaw the current problem. That includes Paul Krugman, and it includes many others.

You guys crack me up with your overthinking things. You know what the meme is going to be coming out of this?

"Barack Obama, supposedly the most intelligent president we've ever had, the ONLY guy that had the plan and the way to fix the horrific 8 years of Bush comes in and proves what we've said all along ... he's a bush leaguer (no pun intended) that has no experience and no clue about how to do anything but make pretty speeches. Now he wants to save healthcare? If he screwed up his "guess" on the economy, can we afford to let him deal with healthcare and the energy crisis? No way!"

That is gonna be what the right wing pounds out and you know it ... or would if you thought about it for more than 3 seconds.

Very interesting site. Hope it will always be alive!

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