THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION

The Bush administration has backed away from a forecast it made public only last week predicting average job gains of more than 300,000 a month for 2004, but says it remains confident of robust though unspecified job growth for the year.
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In two news briefings this week, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, repeatedly declined to endorse the forecast, which was included in the Economic Report of the President, a 417-page book sent to Congress last week under President George W. Bush's signature.
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"The president is not a statistician," McClellan said at one point. Asked why he would not stand behind the forecast, McClellan replied, "I think what the president stands behind is the policies that he is implementing, the policies that he is advocating. That's what's important."-International Herald Tribune, 2/20/04
You can see why the the President wouldn't want to stand by the numbers his own administration put out. The latest jobs report is way bellow the White House's projections and in fact, well bellow the rate of growth needed to keep up with population growth. As John Kerry said ``At this rate, the Bush administration won't create its first job for more than ten years.'' Unfortunately for Bush, the whole culture war distraction hasn't worked out so well and he won't be touting his support of the FMA on the campaign trail. Maybe Rove should start looking for another ridiculous politicaly motivated policy announcement for next week.