But let me kick the hornet's nest and point this out (yeah, I did a search,didn't see it. And I've been thinking for four days about posting this...)
President Bush's first term in office ended up showing a net gains in payroll jobs. From January 2001 to January 2005, the economy generated a net gain of 119,000 jobs. That allows Bush to escape being what Democrats and other critics had projected as the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss of jobs on his watch.
source: MSNBC
see also: Forbes
So was trumpeting the (predicted) statistic about "first president to lose jobs since Hoover" correct or misguided?
Mind you, I find the big negative area under... I mean above, that curve to be the real issue. But this is exactly my point, and question... is it rhetorical error to pin an idea on a "factoid" which can still turn out to be false?
Feel free to quibble with the numbers, to guess they will be revised down... I'm interested in that and in the expertise of the economically minded. I am sure there are some debunkings of this... but it won't change the question about strategic rhetoric.
By relying on that factoid we placed a burden of truth on it... we subsequently had to say, "job growth would have to skyrocket... well it didn't exactly have to skyrocket so much as steadily grow... and having done that or near that... it does not validate Bush's performance getting back to nil... and yet rhetorically that is exactly what is implied when we hang a criticism on a predicted factoid.
How do you think such an exchange plays out... no impact and long forgotten by 2008? Some impact as people remember that Democrats were "proven wrong"? When the numbers are revised down, if they are, would that change how this works?
comments appreciated more than recommendations
Update [2005-2-8 21:41:34 by pyrrho]: oops, regarding the title, I meant to add... he's still the worst President since Hoover... but you know that. Unless you have another worst president in mind. Worst president since... um... President Small Cute Dog?
Elwood Dowd in the comments says Hoover is just the economic reference, actually W is the worst since Franklin Pierce... and worse THAN Pierce, New Hampshire passing the torch to Texas...