CNN's John 'Happy Talk' Avlon: Obama Can Talk of Recovery, Like Reagan in 1984?
CNN analyst John Avlon may have worked a while back for Rudy Giuliani, but on Saturday morning, he sounded like an Obama White House spinner. On the show Your Bottom Line, host Christine Romans asked if the economy will hurt or help Obama.
Avlon tried to compare Obama in 2012 with Ronald Reagan in 1984. This is dicey because the unemployment rate had plunged 3.6 percentage points from its cyclical peak of 10.8 percent that had been reached two years earlier (November 1982). That coincided with the bottom of the deepest recession since World War II (and liberal media types always skip over how badly the economy did under Jimmy Carter). Obama's only down a point and a half from his 10.0 percent high.
Why is Romans ever asking this question?
CHRISTINE ROMANS: Is the economy going to help or hurt this newly populist-sounding president who is really focusing on the things that the Occupy people have been talking about, student loans, fairness?
MARK PRESTON: It's going to help, but it's all trend lines, right? So it's - the unemployment drops to 8.3 percent, 8.4 percent it's still very high. But if there's a trend ward down, that's going to help President Obama.
JOHN AVLON: That's right. And if you look at, you know, historic parallels, I mean, Reagan had very high unemployment, but the trend was moving in the right direction. The GDP growth was moving in the right direction. So it created a sense that maybe it was morning in America. Maybe the dark of night had passed. Things were getting better.
President Obama can say that things were worse three years ago than they are today. He can fairly say that. When he came in, it was really at that low point of the trough, if you look at where the economy was, the jobs loss was, so there's a story to tell.
Avlon is just not paying attention to the actual Bureau of Labor Statistics chart. When Obama came in, it wasn't at the low point. Unemployment was 7.8 percent, and then it went up to 10 percent.
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Comments
⇒ What's that about compromise?
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 10:46pm.
So let's get this straight. The President says he deserves to be a one-term President and now his MSM minions are out to prove Americans are stupid enough to give him 4 more years.
We'll be thanking him for $4 gasoline in no time and begging him to keep up the good work on Green energy.
CA
Submitted by Radical1979 on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 10:50pm.
We'll be praying for $4 gasoline. And don't forget, one of my favorites with BO, electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket.
Oh yeah, we need four more years of this guy.
⇒ Yeah, he's just like Reagan
Submitted by Cool Arrow on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 10:50pm.
For all we've been hit with this "Reaganesque" nonsense, you'd think Ronaldus Magnus was a Democrat.
It should tell these losers something that they keep falling back on comparisons to great Republicans and increasingly shy away from that Socialist FDR.
I wish they'd make up their minds
Submitted by Dan Diego on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 11:05pm.
For years libs have ridiculed Reagan as an dumb president who got lucky thanks to a dem congress, now they want to emulate him. They're getting desperate.
There's something toxic in CNN's air!
Submitted by Mary Louise Turner on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 11:02pm.
"John Avlon may have worked for Rudy Giuliani, but...he sounded like an Obama White House spinner..."
What pollutants are in the CNN air that poisons anyone who comes on the nutwork...or who watches it???
when it's a D
Submitted by MidAmerica on Sun, 01/29/2012 - 11:04pm.
It seems that an economy that is merely less bad is now considered a recovery.
Avlon
Submitted by mmilesll on Mon, 01/30/2012 - 12:05am.
John keeps proving what an asshole he is. No wonder no one watches CNN
CNN's John 'Happy Talk'
Submitted by RR GOP on Mon, 01/30/2012 - 1:16am.
CNN's John 'Happy Talk' Avlon: Obama Can Talk of Recovery, Like Reagan in 1984?
Saw a clip recently of Slick Willy talking about the hard economic times back in 1996 (it was on one of these space aliens visiting earth shows on the History Channel and the Dress Stainer in Chief was commenting about the possibility of microbes having been discovered on a Martian meteorite)...couldn't help but to think, "Yeah, and Newt Gingrich and the House Republicans got your sorry a$$ out of that fix now, didn't they?"
"Under Capitalism, man exploits man. Under Communism it's just the opposite."
"All that Communism needs to make it successful is for someone to feed and clothe it."
Anyone can lie -- but we expect more from our President
Submitted by Galvanic on Mon, 01/30/2012 - 12:13pm.
JOHN AVLON: . . . President Obama can say that things were worse three years ago than they are today. He can fairly say that. When he came in, it was really at that low point of the trough, if you look at where the economy was, the jobs loss was, so there's a story to tell."
Of course, Obama can say that, and he'll be laughed at. Unemployment was below 8.0% when he came in. The Democratic Congress passed a stimulus bill, Obama signed it into law, and unemployment rose to over 10%. It's still well over 8%. At no time during this Administration has the unemployment number been better than when he was sworn in.
So, Obama can say whatever he wants, but the American public knows better.