The Wrong Study
In One Short Half Hour Republicans twisted themselves into a preznit pretzel and managed to prove the point that all those dumb old scientists were making:
BEGALA: Well, more than 60 leading scientists, including 20 Nobel Prize winners, today said that the Bush administration has — quote — “misrepresented scientific knowledge and misled the public about the implications of its policies” — unquote.
The group includes scholars from both political parties, who say President Bush and his team systematically distort science in order to serve Mr. Bush’s political agenda on issues ranging from nuclear weapons to biomedical research to the environment to health.
So, now we know George W. Bush misled us about the war in Iraq. He misled us about the environment, about health care, about science. He certainly misled us about the deficit, jobs and his tax cut. Of course, don’t forget his many fibs about his National Guard service. Of course, Mr. Bush’s defenders do have an important point. He never lied about Monica Lewinsky. And isn’t that really what matters?
CARLSON: Actually, there were not 20 Nobel Prize winners. There were about…
BEGALA: Yes, there were.
CARLSON: Actually, I checked. They were about half that.
BEGALA: So it’s only Ten Nobel Prize winners.
CARLSON: It’s something called the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is a left-wing and completely discredited, utterly partisan group.
BEGALA: It’s totally bipartisan.
CARLSON: No, no.
BEGALA: One of the members worked in the
BEGALA: … for two Republican presidents.
CARLSON: Right, worked in the Nixon administration. Right. That’s exactly right. It is completely partisan. That’s why your alert contained not a single specific example of what — how George Bush had subverted science, because there aren’t any. Go on the Web site.
All those scientists are bloodthirsty leftist partisans who clearly don’t know what they are talking about. George W. Bush has never subverted science. For instance, the Bush team would never encourage his people to stop using the methods and models to measure economic activity that have been used by the government for decades. They would never say that it was permissable to substitute completely different measurements, having the effect of comparing apples to oranges, in order to give the impression that they are successful when the standard surveys reveal that his policies are miserable failures. That, after all, would fall under the definition of “subverting science” and there is simply no proof that they have ever done such a thing.
BEGALA: I want to bring Mr. Forbes in, because I do want to focus on the promises that President Bush has made.
[…]
BEGALA: But shouldn’t he be held accountable for his promises?
FORBES: Even he misunderestimated the damage you guys did to the economy.
BEGALA: Oh, those 24 million jobs we created?
FORBES: All short-term oriented, all short-term oriented. And now the president, as soon as he took office, he reduced tax rates, put in incentives, coped with the disaster of 9/11.
Today, we are creating jobs. There are 2.5 million more jobs today in the United States than there were when he took office, when you look at the right survey of measuring these things. And now we’re on track again.
BEGALA: What survey is that?
[…]
SPERLING: But, Steve, we’re down 2.9 million sector private — private-sector jobs since he came into office. Let’s forget the recession. Let’s forget 9/11. Since the recession ended, we’re down a million. Steve, our are standards
FORBES: You’re looking at the wrong survey. You’re looking at the payroll — you’re looking at … You’re looking at the payroll survey.
SPERLING: I’m looking at what everybody has always looked at and regarded as the most significant survey.
FORBES: You’re looking at the wrong thing.
SPERLING: Steve, Steve…
FORBES: As a journalist, Paul, you shouldn’t look at what everyone else looks at.
Tuckie? Hello?
Update: Maybe it’s better to simply redefine what a job is. For instance, the administration indicates that burger flipping could soon be classified as a “manufacturing” job. That must be where those 2.6 long-term jobs that Steve Forbes says Bush has created are…
Meanwhile, cashing tax free dividend checks is now classified as a job, as is eating dinner and watching the Paris Hilton video on your private plane. Bush has created more jobs than any president in history.