“Bush Unemployment at 5.0%- Bad… Clinton Unemployment at 5.4%- Good”

A tale of two unemployment reports from GatewayPundit. Witness the drive-by media’s tendency to hyperbolize an otherwise innocuous statistic in 2007 and their relative ambivalence in 1996.

Also:

“The economy is getting hit by some body blows. The big question is whether the economy can withstand it or will it take a fall,” said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.

Doesn’t this sound familiar? The use of the term “body blows” is remarkable for the fact that it has most certainly been said at least a million times since right after the economy last righted itself in 2001. Here’s a sampling of manufactured hysteria employing this worn-out boxing metaphor:

2002 - Body blows from corporate scandals - “Corporate scandal could be the sucker punch that sends the economy reeling. ” . . . “The business bombshells that have rocked Wall Street could slow the nation’s recovery and shove the country back into recession, some experts fear.There’s only so much people will be willing to lose before they stop spending — and reverse the economic gains of recent months, experts said. ”

“Is this sequence of events big enough . . . to put us in another recession? My direct answer is yes, unfortunately,” said David Scott, an economist at the University of…
”

2005 - Big Hurricanes mean body blows to the economy - “Katrina and Rita are reaching for your wallet.

Prices at the pump, the cost of natural gas and electricity prices are all soaring. And they’re likely to head even higher thanks to the one-two punch of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita — an economic body blow that will have millions earmarking a much bigger chunk of the family budget for energy this winter.”

2005 - Increased outsourcing means body blows -”Has the rush to outsource high-tech jobs, and maybe more crucially, high-tech expertise, inflicted a body blow on Silicon Valley, and by extension, the U.S. economy?”

2005 - Higher fuel costs are more body blows - “Nevertheless, the unexpected surge in prices at the pump has certainly dealt a body blow to households–just in time for the critical back-to-school sales shopping season. Those sales are expected to drop as much as 8 percent this year. “

2005 - Housing worries conspire with higher energy costs to deliver body blows - “If the consumer gets weighed down by the combination of higher energy prices, the bursting of a housing bubble, and higher interest rates, you can forget about optimistic forecasts” for the economy and earnings next year, said Morgan Stanley Chief Economist Stephen Roach.

2007 - Subprime credit crunch and housing worries announce they will deliver body blows to US economy - “The battered real estate and home building markets took another body blow Thursday as a government reading showed a bigger than expected drop in new home sales, and the nation’s top builders posted large losses due to the weak market and took charges for the declining value of their holdings.” . . . “Part of the problem for pricing is rising mortgage rates and problems in the subprime mortgage market, both of which are raising the cost of borrowing for potential buyers and limiting how much they can afford to borrow.”