My god! Dean made the obvious joke before the commenters could! You go Dean!

Dean,

The "riding high" joke is obvious: Clinton claimed that "he didn't inhale". Bush just hasn't exhaled yet.

The article also just reported Mr. Bush's claims about the oil market and refinery capacity being squeezed without a scintilla of fact-checking and context. Because of falling demand, refineries are only running at 80% of capacity and refiners like Valero are facing a pocket squeeze. The current price spike is strictly the result in the rise of crude oil. Bush repeats lies and these guys act like stenographers and then go the Democrats for the opposition quote and they have their little "narrative."

Dean, what do you think is keeping the ecomomy treading water? It appears to me that it is being supported by agriculture, health care (and the stability social security and medicare provide reimbursement and the demographic trend increases demand), manufacturing and service exports (as result of cheaper dollar), and mining and energy due to the commodity boom. These offsets have mitigated the blows that result from the Great Housing Bust and the resulting drawback by consumers and the retail recession.

I believe that immigration was also at a peak during the Bush II administrations. Does that mean that job growth was even less impressive then since the labor force was increasing very rapidly?

Dean-

wouldn't the biggest factor in job growth over an 8 year period be the level of employment that began the period? If you start at high levels of employment and have an average economy you would show low job growth betwee n the two time points. In contrast if you start the period at the peak of unemployment and have an average economy you might show goo growth.

Does your analysis take this into account?

Touche, Mr Baker. I've been ranting to others about how bad job growth has been in this business upcycle-as a % of population/labor force(the only way to compare across time)-for years. And, that's the prime single reason consumer debt levels, including idiotic mortgage & related(HELOC) loans, have climbed so high.
As to 'how it keeps going'-inflation(and the minimizing thereof. In this am's 'GDP' dart toss, nominal GDP('GDP classic') grew just under 4.7% yr/yr(a historically poor/low rate), while consumer spending on gasoline,etc., grew 30%+ yr/yr; in fact, if yr/yr spending growth in gasoline, home electricity/heating(over 12% y/y) and food(almost 6% y/y-and that likely needed a lot of substitution finagling to stay under double digits) had grown only 3.5% yr/yr(a respectable inflation rate for essentially commodity items), yr/yr GDP growth would have been about 1% lower. And saying general inflation was only 2.6%(GDP price index) in the 'real GDP, qtr/qtr' blast of statistical flatulence is nonsensical & insulting to common sense.

He was riding high on claims of job growth -- which the corporate media duely transcribed and reported as if it were reality.

So you see, the story is accurate.

Ah, but you cheated. Using % chnage as the metric adjusts for the base. That's partisan spin. You should have used the simple rise in payroll or household employment, whichever is greater under Bush. You also neglected to note that, at least when dealing with labor market data, 2003 was the first year of the Bush presidency. Get yer math right.

Really, the rate of job growth should be matched against the population growth. If it's less, as it has been under George II (and George I), that's job losses in real terms. "2003 the first year of Bush presidency": that's rich!

While considering population growth would be the intellectually honest measurement, the results wouldn't let Dean make his 'riding high' joke.

A thousand lights up the Bushes asses.