Plus: When Hillary flunked.

The headline in today's NYT reads, ominously:

Ashcroft Aide Under New Scrutiny

It turns out the piece is a source-greasing puffer about Justice department inspector general Glenn A. Fine, and the "scrutiny" is all the attention he's getting for writing a bold report critical of the department's treatment of 9/11 detainees. ... I'm often reminded that it's unfair to blame NYT reporters for the headlines on their pieces. They don't write them. But that begs the question: Who are the amateurishly biased hacks who do? ... In this case, they pushed the "slime Bush appointee" button when they were supposed to push the "boost anti-Bush whistleblower" button! ... P.S.: I'm writing this at 2:23 A.M. Bet they've changed the hed by the time you read it. After all, what's the point of a source-greaser that slanders the source instead of greasing him? ... Update: Wrong. It's still there. ...

Poor Andrew: There's a lot of talk in the press about how Andrew Cuomo's split with his wife Kerry Kennedy Cuomo will end his political career. Why doesn't it help him? Two weeks ago he had the image of a) a political thug who b) inexplicably blew his big run for office. The Kerry mess both humanizes him--making him look like a loving dad to boot--and gives him a ready-made excuse for his disastrous campaign (i.e., he was rattled by his marriage woes). If he were a stock, I'd buy. ... 1:17 A.M.

Friday, July 4, 2003 

More from the kausfiles Continuous Newsteam. ... If you believe the LAT poll, the current drive to recall Gray Davis is clearly Arnold Schwarzenegger's best and perhaps only chance to become governor of California. Why? a) 53 percent of registered voters are "not inclined" to vote for him. In a head-to-head matchup against a Democrat, that number would normally be fatal. In a recall "replacement" election, where there might be no Democratic opponent and where you can win with only 25 percent or so of the vote, it might not be. b) Schwarzenegger needs as short a campaign as possible to prevent all the Democrats' potential dirt on him from sinking in with the electorate. Not only would a recall election campaign be short, it would also dilute the dirt--the Democrats would have to worry about tarring all the Republican replacement candidates, not just Schwarzenegger. ... Is there enough time, even in a rushed, chaotic recall campaign, to effectively trash Schwarzenegger? The Feiler Faster Thesissaysyes! ... Otherwise, Schwarzenegger could be Governor of California by Halloween. ... 4:48 P.M.

"It's hard to put a positive spin on this report," says an economist quoted in Daniel Altman's NYT lead story on the June unemployment stats. Actually, it's not that hard. Here goes. ...

The numbers aren't good, but

a) You have to read Altman's story very carefully to realize that, in one of the two Labor department surveys, total employment rose by 251,000 (sorry, make that "only 251,000").  The problem seems to be that many more people (more than 600,000) entered the work force to look for work, meaning the unemployment rate for those looking for work rose. Call the new job-seekers "encouraged workers."  Bush gets routinely (and fairly) bashed by the left when a favorable unemployment rate ignores the "discouraged workers" who leave the work force; shouldn't he get a commensurate break when the unemployment rate rises mainly because workers have been encouraged to reenter the job market? (As Altman reports, in the Labor department's other survey, the payroll survey, the total number of jobs did fall by 30,000--no "only" this time. Altman himself suggests one possible positive explanation: the payroll survey lags and is reporting job losses from earlier this year.)

b) The unemployment rate for blacks rose steeply because blacks didn't leave the labor force despite the poor job market. In contrast with previous slowdowns, Altman notes (paraphrasing one of his experts) "blacks who lose their jobs seem less likely to drop out of the labor force and more likely to look for new ones." That's a good thing! It means black attachment to the labor force is growing. You want to bet that a lot of the new, less-easily-discouraged job-seekers are single mothers who, now that welfare is being reformed, see their future as workers?

Altman's near-panicky gloom-and-doom Times story seems to have convinced some of my e-mailers that the economy is "spiraling downward." It's not. The news still isn't good mainly because the lesson of the '90s is that it's not enough to have economic growth, and it's not enough to have rising employment or even falling unemployment. To get the good things that started to happen in the late '90s--decreased poverty, rising unskilled wages, dramatic strides into the middle and upper classes by blacks (who really do seem to be last-hired, first-fired, as the lefties have always said), a transformed urban culture, and a general shift of respect toward anyone who is willing to actually show up and do a job--you need a very tight labor market for an extended period of time. Democrats are right to hold that out as a standard for Bush to meet--and we're still a long ways away from it. ...  Eliminate the middleAltman: The Labor department's June employment report can be found  here. ...

P.S.: This is the second confusing, badly edited Bush-bashing story by Altman in 48 hours. Is he just overworked? Maybe the NYT needs more troops! ['Badly edited'? Ex. pls-ed. Is the "gap" Altman tries to explain in paragraph 10 the gap between those looking for work and those finding it, or the gap between the two Labor department surveys? Who the hell knows! Altman seems to be talking about both "gaps" at once.] .... 2:06 P.M.