As the economy has improved, President Bush's association with its results has decreased, and now has virtually disappeared.
Good economic news has poured out as if from a geyser during the past couple of weeks: consumer confidence, GDP growth, Christmas retail sales, unemployment, durable goods, the booming online sales, just to scratch the surface.
Not coincidentally, in my opinion, the term "Bush Economy," which had been fairly prevalent in 2002 and 2003, has gone AWOL, especially in the three weeks since the President's December 5 North Carolina speech praising the economy's performance.
A Google News search on "Bush Economy" (in quotes) for the past 30 days done just before midnight Eastern Time on December 27 yielded a grand total of thirty results.
Click on the link to see the latest results. When I did the search, only five of them were dated after December 8, and one of them (from CNN) referred to a "Reggie Bush Economy" (after college football's Heisman Trophy winner). None of the remaining four results were from a major media outlet.
Of the 25 results from November 28 - December 8, none are from the NY Times, Washington Post, or LA Times (though one Birmingham newspaper entry from December 6 carries an LA Time byline). Two CNN entries from December 5 are entitled "Bush Out to Dispel Economic Pessimism." Two Reuters entries from the same date are similarly titled. Four entries from Scripps Howard two days later report carry a "Bush is perplexed that the public isn't giving it more credit for the economy" theme. Two other entries are DNC press releases, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi telling us that we shouldn't believe our lying eyes--the economy is still bad, the rich are getting all the benefits, blah blah.
The decrease in "Bush economy" Google News hits, especially in the past 19 days, tells me that we can expect Mainstream Media coverage of the economy to continue to avoid mentioning Mr. Bush as much as possible--at least while the news remains good.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
