- Even before President George W. Bush took office in January
2001, his surrogates began to suggest that the Bush administration was
inheriting an economic recession from the Clinton administration. Over
the last three and a half years, the media has been awash in false references
to Bush "inheriting a recession" from Clinton. A recent Media
Matters for America poll found that 62 percent of Americans hold the false
belief that the recession began under Clinton.
-
- In March 2001, the U.S. economy went into recession for
the first time in ten years, according to the National Bureau of Economic
Research (NBER.) NBER -- the private, nonpartisan organization whose business
cycle announcements have long been considered the definitive word on the
topic -- announced its determination on November 26, 2001:
-
- The NBER's Business Cycle Dating Committee has determined
that a peak in business activity occurred in the U.S. economy in March
2001. A peak marks the end of an expansion and the beginning of a recession.
The determination of a peak date in March is thus a determination that
the expansion that began in March 1991 ended in March 2001 and a recession
began. The expansion lasted exactly 10 years, the longest in the NBER's
chronology.
-
- NBER's president, Martin Feldstein, was a Bush campaign
adviser who has long been close to the Bush family, as the National Review's
Lawrence Kudlow recently noted:
-
- Conventional thinking has Greenspan departing in 2006
and Bush appointing Harvard economist Martin Feldstein as his successor.
The former Reagan economic adviser has strong ties to the administration,
dating back to Papa Bush and extending through Bush Jr.'s presidential
run, when he sat on the campaign's economic policy committee. Since then
he has frequently briefed both the president and vice president. As president
of the National Bureau of Economic Research and a prolific writer, he enjoys
considerable credibility inside the economic establishment.
-
- In short, NBER is widely respected, long recognized as
the arbiter of recessions, and is headed by a Bush ally; so if NBER says
the recession began in March 2001, the recession began in March 2001.
-
- Why, then, does a clear majority of Americans think the
recession "definitely" or "probably" began under Clinton?
In a poll conducted for Media Matters for America, pollster Geoff Garin
asked respondents if the following statement is true: "Statistics
show that the current economic recession actually began during Bill Clinton's
administration, before George W. Bush took office." The results:
-
- Definitely true: 34 percent
- Probably true: 28 percent
- Probably not true: 15 percent
- Definitely not true: 16 percent
- Not sure: 7 percent
-
- Sixty-two percent of Americans think the recession began
under Clinton; a plurality says it is "definitely true." Only
16 percent are certain of the fact that the recession began on Bush's watch.
How can so few Americans know who was president when the most recent recession
began?
-
- The answer is simple: Conservatives have waged a successful
three-and-a-half year media campaign to convince the public that the recession
began under Clinton. The effort began before Bush took office; Vice President-elect
Dick Cheney kicked it off with a December 3, 2000, appearance on NBC's
Meet the Press:
-
- CHENEY: There's growing evidence out there, Tim, that
the economy is slowing down. We're seeing it in automobile sales and a
lot of other areas, earnings falling off for corporations, and we may well
be on the front edge of a recession here. ...
-
- RUSSERT: Do you think we're on the front edge of a recession?
-
- CHENEY: I think so. ...
-
- Two days later, FOX News Channel political contributor
and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich carried Cheney's line forward on
FOX, saying, "[T]here's a danger he's going to inherit a recession."[1]
On December 14, 2000, former House Majority Leader Dick Armey told CNN,
"[W]hen I listen to and talk to my fellow economists, they're predicting
almost with a uniform voice that this new president may inherit a recession."[2]
Gingrich continued the onslaught on the December 18, declaring on FOX,
"I think there is a very severe danger of a recession. And I think
that the Bush-Cheney administration should be planning on having inherited
a recession as the farewell gift from Clinton."[3] By the time President-elect
Bush and President Clinton held a brief joint media availability on December
19, the suggestion that Bush would "inherit a recession" had
already taken hold, resulting in questions from a reporter to both Bush
and Clinton:
-
- REPORTER: Mr. President-elect, talking about the economy,
about problems with the economy, are you going to inherit a recession from
President Clinton? And, President Clinton, what are your thoughts about
that? [4]
-
- On December 21, Philadelphia Daily News columnist Sandy
Grady wrote of the Bush camp's claims that a recession was already underway:
-
- Strange, the noisy alarms by Bush & Co. about a recession.
Dubya, noting California brownouts, talks of "an energy crisis bringing
on a downturn." One of his economists spoke fearfully of "softness
in the economy, auto sales, signs of worry." There's spin behind their
gloom: "Hey, it's Clinton's fault, not ours, if the 2001 economy goes
south." So Bush was visibly uncomfortable and Clinton bemused at the
first press question to Dubya: "Are you going to inherit a recession
from Clinton?"
-
- Through most of 2001, the "inherited a recession"
line slowed to a trickle, though during a roundtable discussion on FOX
News in March, anchor Brit Hume suggested that it was Democrats who were
trying to manipulate the public's impression of when the recession began:
-
- HUME: All right, now, let me just -- let -- all of us
suggest that the deeper meaning of the argument being mounted, it's a silly
economic argument, that you could talk the economy into a recession. But
it -- might it work, Juan, as a way of making this the Bush recession rather
than the Clinton recession inherited by Bush?
-
- WILLIAMS: Yes, and -- but it's not silly to say you can't
talk yourself into trouble, because you can lower consumer confidence.
-
- HUME: Well ...
-
- BIRNBAUM: Yes, I think Democrats want the Bush recession.
They want people to think of it that way. I'm not sure it'll work.
-
- HUME: Bill?
-
- KRISTOL: Recession, recession, recession. I'm saying
that R-word over and over.
-
- HUME: No, but do you think that it will work to pin this,
I mean, can this -- does this become the Bush recession...? [5]
-
- At the time of this exchange, there had not yet been
a determination that there was a recession. And yet Hume was flatly stating
that a recession was underway, that it started under Clinton, and that
it was "inherited" by Bush.
-
- Otherwise, the "inherited recession" line lay
relatively dormant -- appearing once every few months -- until August 2002,
when it was suddenly unavoidable. Then-Director of the Office of Management
and Budget Mitch Daniels declared on FOX News Channel, "He [Bush]
inherited that recession from the previous administration. Case is closed."[6]
On CNN that same morning, Daniels announced, "The recession this administration
inherited last year is over."[7] And he was back on CNN that afternoon
to add, "It was the recession that he [Bush] inherited and the cost
of the war and repairing the damage from last September that put us in
deficit."[8]
-
- None of Daniels's false comments were contradicted by
his cable network hosts, despite widely available facts about when the
recession actually had begun. Suddenly the Republican line that Bush had
"inherited" a recession was everywhere: Conservative guests on
news programs repeated it with impunity and were almost never corrected
by their hosts; meanwhile, TV news reporters routinely quoted or paraphrased
Republican officials, almost always failing to correct them.
-
- On September 18, 2002, for example, CNN's John King told
viewers:
-
- The administration acknowledges the economy, as our poll
shows, is the number one issue. That's why the president, in almost every
speech, tries to remind voters he inherited a recession. [9]
-
- Five days later, CNN's Suzanne Malveaux used similar
language:
-
- [Bush] took up that very issue earlier today, saying
-- reminding voters that the administration inherited the recession, again
making the argument that tax relief is really what turned the economy around,
also stressing some domestic issues critical to the GOP, namely the need
for defense spending as well as terrorism insurance, and again taking the
opportunity to blast Democrats in the Senate for not passing his own version
of homeland security.[10]
-
- On November 6, 2002, FOX News Channel's Sean Hannity
made the false assertion in an exchange with New Jersey Democratic Senator
John Corzine:
-
- HANNITY: All right. All right. I want to -- let me go
back to this economic stuff here for just a second. If the Democrats --
first of all, this president -- you know and I know and everybody knows
-- inherited a recession. That's a fact. So ...
-
- CORZINE: It wasn't a recession.
-
- HANNITY: Wait. Wait a minute. Yes, it was. It was a recession.
-
- CORZINE: It wasn't. It wasn't.
-
- HANNITY: Two quarters ...
-
- CORZINE: It was slowing down.
-
- HANNITY: No, it was by every definition a recession.
So this president comes in. Like John Kennedy, a Democrat, he cut taxes
to stimulate the economy. Should the Democrats have run on rescinding the
tax cut?[11]
-
- Hannity, clearly fond of the "inherited recession"
line, came back to it again and again ... and again:
-
- HANNITY, 5/6/03: Now here's where we are. The inherited
Clinton/Gore recession. That's a fact.[12]
-
- HANNITY, 7/10/03: The president inherited a recession.[13]
-
- HANNITY, 12/12/03: They did inherit the recession. They
did inherit the recession. We got out of the recession.[14]
-
- HANNITY, 1/6/04: And this is the whole point behind this
ad, because the president did inherit a recession.[15]
-
- HANNITY, 1/15/04: Historically in every recovery, because
the president rightly did inherit a recession. But historically, the lagging
indicator always deals with employment.[16]
-
- HANNITY, 1/20/04: Congressman Deutsch, maybe you forgot
but I'll be glad to remind you, the president did inherit that recession.[17]
-
- HANNITY, 2/2/04: He did inherit a recession, and we're
out of the recession.[18]
-
- HANNITY, 2/23/04: The president inherited a recession.[19]
-
- HANNITY, 3/3/04: The president inherited a recession.[20]
-
- HANNITY, 3/3/04: Well, you know, we're going to show
ads, as a matter of fact, in the next segment, Congressman. Thanks for
promoting our next segment. What I like about them is everything I've been
saying the president ought to do: is focusing in on his positions, on keeping
the nation secure in very difficult times, what he's been able to do to
the economy after inheriting a very difficult recession, and of course,
the economic impact of 9/11.[21]
-
- On March 11, 2004, Michael Meehan, a senior adviser to
Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign, appeared on Hannity & Colmes.
Kerry had recently referred to some Bush surrogates as "the most crooked,
you know, lying group I've ever seen." Hannity repeatedly pressed
Meehan to say whether Kerry thinks Hannity is a "crooked liar."
Meehan responded:
-
- MEEHAN: Just last night, Sean, you said on the show the
Clinton-Gore recession and then came 9/11. That's just not true. There
wasn't a Clinton-Gore recession. The Bush White House will tell you it
started in March 2001. This is your show, last night, your words. This
is the kind of thing we have to fight back on. That's why I'm on the show
today.[22]
-
- Five days later, on March 16, Hannity asked Commerce
Secretary Don Evans to confirm that Bush had "inherited a recession:"
-
- HANNITY: All right. You need to settle this once and
for all. We had a John Kerry supporter on the other night, yelling at me
because I pointed out the truth, which is the recession was inherited by
the president. Am I right or is he right?
-
- EVANS: You're right, Sean. Actually the third quarter
of 2000, we had negative growth in the economy. The fourth quarter was
positive. But then the first three quarters of 2001 were also negative.
You know, I think technically they called it in March of 2001, but really
you saw negative growth in the third quarter of 2000. You saw the first
three quarters of 2001 were all negative growth, as well. And so yes, we
were handed a recession.
-
- HANNITY: All right. So this is where I view the economic
scenario as we head into this election. The president inherited a recession.
We now have the longest quarter of growth in 20 years, where the American
people have got two tax cuts. We've been able to overcome the impact of
the economy, which was devastating as a result of 9/11, and the unemployment
rate now is lower than the average of the 1990's, and it's still a lagging
indicator. Doesn't sound too bad to me.[23]
-
- Note that Evans pointed out that "technically"
the recession began in March 2001. Later, in an exchange with Alan Colmes,
Evans again acknowledged the recession's true start date:
-
- COLMES: But let me also get on this issue of the recession,
the National Bureau of Economic Research's business cycle dating committee
is the one that the president's own economic advisers say is the arbiter
of when a recession begins. They say it began in March of 2001. And that
is a group the president himself has said he respects as the arbiter of
that kind of thing. So why do we keep saying it is a Bush-Gore -- Clinton-Gore
recession?
-
- EVANS: Well, two points, Alan. ... You know, on the other
issue with respect to when the recession, you know, you're talking about
a technical issue of when a board technically declared the beginning of
the recession. Oftentimes what you look to, though, is when you have consecutive
quarters of negative growth. And we saw negative growth in the third quarter
of -- of 2000. The first three quarters of 2001 were negative growth. So
you know, you can debate whether or not it was January or March. The board
said March of 2001. But there was no question in anybody's mind that the
economy was going straight south. The stock market peaked in 2000, and
it began its collapse in March of 2000. So the economy was clearly moving
into a recession.[24]
-
- The Commerce secretary of the United States -- who was
also Bush's 2000 campaign chairman -- admitted on Hannity's TV show that
the recession began in March 2001. Did that stop Sean Hannity from claiming
that Bush "inherited" the recession? Ten days later, Hannity
said:
-
- HANNITY, 3/26/04: First of all, we've got to put it into
perspective, is that the president inherited a recession.[25]
-
- HANNITY, 4/2/04: Clearly, we're out of the recession
that President Bush inherited.[26]
-
- HANNITY, 4/6/04: Stop me where I'm wrong. The president
inherited a recession, the economic impact of 9/11 was tremendous on the
economy, correct?[27]
-
- As far back as July 2003, The Washington Post had reported
on the Bush administration's efforts to back-date the recession:
-
- With the start of his reelection campaign in the past
two weeks, President Bush has revived his pastime of blaming his predecessor,
Bill Clinton, for the economic recession. ... It's a good applause line
for a crowd of red-meat political supporters. The trouble is it's a case
of what the president has called, in another context, revisionist history.
The recession officially began in March of 2001 -- two months after Bush
was sworn in -- according to the universally acknowledged arbiter of such
things, the National Bureau of Economic Research. And the president, at
other times, has said so himself.[28]
-
- Despite the Post's efforts to correct the record, the
conservative misinformation continued to spread. In January 2004, the Charleston
Post and Courier published an editorial that stated:
-
- President Bush has correctly pointed out that the combination
of a recession he inherited and a war on terror forced upon him has precluded
any viable approach that would balance the federal budget. He also has
correctly pointed out that his tax cuts have helped turn the economy around.
-
- On March 9, The Chattanooga Times Free Press editorialized,
"President George W. Bush responded to inherited economic recession
by cutting taxes for every income taxpayer to reduce tax injustice and
create more jobs." An Albany Times Union editorial on March 18 noted,
"Indeed, the CBO found that only 6 percent of the deficit can be blamed
on the recession that Mr. Bush inherited on taking office, and the economic
slowdown that followed 9/11 attacks." On March 19, The Florida Times-Union
declared in an editorial that the current economy "represents an incredible
turnaround from the Clinton recession that President Bush inherited."
-
- On his MSNBC program Hardball, host Chris Matthews simultaneously
falsely argued that Bush "inherited a recession" and then said
correctly that the recession began in March 2001:
-
- MARK MELLMAN: Well, that's fundamentally not true. The
reality is when George Bush came into office, he promised to create four
million jobs; we've lost four million. Just a couple weeks ago, he promised
to create 2.6 million jobs this year, signed his name to it.
-
- CHRIS MATTHEWS: But the ad makes clear that they inherited
a recession.
-
- MELLMAN: If they don't create 2.6 million jobs this year,
he's failed to meet his own standard.
-
- MATTHEWS: But they inherited a recession from Clinton
that cost all those jobs.
-
- MELLMAN: That's baloney.
-
- MATTHEWS: What do you mean? When did the recession hit?
When did the recession hit?
-
- MELLMAN: But the reality ...
-
- MATTHEWS: March of 2001, the minute they got into office.
-
- Notes:
-
- [1] FOX News Channel, The Edge With Paula Zahn, 12/5/00
- [2] CNN, 12/14/00
- [3] FOX News Channel, Special Report With Brit Hume,
12/18/00
- [4] Bush/Clinton joint media availability, 12/19/00
- [5] FOX News Channel, Special Report With Brit Hume,
3/15/01
- [6] Fox News Channel, Special Report With Brit Hume,
8/13/02
- [7] CNN, Money Morning, 8/13/02
- [8] CNN, Inside Politics, 8/13/02
- [9] CNN, 9/18/02
- [10] CNN, Live Today, 9/23/02
- [11] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 11/6/02
- [12] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 5/6/03
- [13] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 7/10/03
- [14] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 12/12/03
- [15] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 1/6/04
- [16] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 1/15/04
- [17] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 1/20/04
- [18] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 2/2/04
- [19] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 2/23/04
- [20] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 3/3/04
- [21] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 3/3/04
- [22] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 3/11/04
- [23] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 3/16/04
- [24] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 3/16/04
- [25] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 3/26/04
- [26] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 4/2/04
- [27] FOX News Channel, Hannity & Colmes, 4/6/04
- [28] The Washington Post, 7/1/03
- [29] Charleston Post and Courier, 1/7/04
- [30] The Chattanooga Times Free Press, 3/9/04
- [31] Albany Times Union, 3/18/04
- [32] The Florida Times-Union, 3/19/04
- [33] MSNBC, Hardball, 3/3/04
-
- Copyright © 2004 Media Matters for America. All
rights reserved.
-
- http://mediamatters.org/items/200405010002
|
