The Cheneys Are Hypocrites And Shameful Parents

[NATO AIR]

Alright see this is the one thing that pisses me off... the Cheneys have openly, publically talked about their daughter being a lesbian, at social and politicial events, in national interviews for magazines, internet and TV. so how the fuck does kerry "OUT" her on national TV? damn near everybody knew about it already. he was making a simple political point that i for one actually agree with.

you have a lesbian daughter that you accept and love. how then can you support the gay bashing of a great number of republicans both in the white house and in the party as a whole?
the democrats are not the ones with a substantial anti-gay base....the republicans are. you see it on the board, there are some folks who are downright bigots. i respect their free speech and they're mostly good folks aside from that, but it scares the living daylights out of me at times.

where is dick cheney and his wife when alan keyes, running this year for senate in illinois, calls their daughter a selfish hedonist?

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040901-093347-1067r.htm

Keyes slams Cheney daughter

New York, NY, Sep. 1 (UPI) -- Illinois Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Alan Keyes reportedly had tough words for vice presidential daughter Mary Cheney because she is a lesbian.

In an interview with SIRUS satellite radio, the Internet's Drudge Report said Wednesday, Keyes called Mary Cheney "a 'selfish hedonist' because she is a lesbian."

Keyes said: "The essence of ... family life remains procreation. If we embrace homosexuality as a proper basis for marriage, we are saying that it's possible to have a marriage state that in principal excludes procreation and is based simply on the premise of selfish hedonism."

Asked whether that meant Mary Cheney "is a selfish hedonist," Keyes said: "That goes by definition. Of course she is."

Keyes took to the airwaves again Wednesday to try and put the remark in context. WBBM-AM, Chicago, reported he denied the comment was meant to slam Mary Cheney and blamed the media for taking a generalization and making it personal. Keyes said if he had a lesbian daughter he would love her but tell her she was sinning.

so let me get this straight, the cheneys are outraged that kerry reminded the nation their daughter is gay... alright, but alan keyes and other republicans can trash her and other gays and they have no problem with it?
SHAMEFUL! WTF kind of parents are they? who are they to act shocked and hurt with kerry? they need to be mad as hell at some members of their own party.

BECAUSE BUSH IS PANDERING TO BIGOTS AND HE WANTS THEIR VOTES.... bush isn't stupid, he knows how to steal conservative democrat votes by swinging them to vote for him on that main issue: gay marriage and gays in general.

kerry obviously did this to knock off a point or two of bush's base, people who may not have realized or known much about the VP having a gay daughter and are angry at this realization. perhaps he also did it to showcase the hypocricy evident on this issue within the bush-cheney ticket.

 

[insein]

Because you dont talk about another mans family. Especially one not very active in the campaign.

Glenn Beck made a good analogy today in light of Mrs. Edwards ridiculous statements. What if the question came up are people born obese and do they have a choice to change? If Bush decided to say, "Well i'd imagine you can ask Senator Edwards' wife about that. After all she is a Fattie."

What the hell does that have to do with the question at all? IT was just a cheap tactic to try and remind people that the administration has a lesbian in near the white house. He was trying to scare conservatives. Shameful

 

[Palestinian Jew]

So when Cheney mentioned his daughter on the campaign trail, what was that, "scare tactics"?

This is another non-issue Republicans are trying to push to keep Iraq and the economy out of the news, and so far it is working. And kudos on trying to push more swiftboat BS down our throats.

 

[NATO AIR]

Because you dont talk about another mans family. Especially one not very active in the campaign.

Glenn Beck made a good analogy today in light of Mrs. Edwards ridiculous statements. What if the question came up are people born obese and do they have a choice to change? If Bush decided to say, "Well i'd imagine you can ask Senator Edwards' wife about that. After all she is a Fattie."

What the hell does that have to do with the question at all? IT was just a cheap tactic to try and remind people that the administration has a lesbian in near the white house. He was trying to scare conservatives. Shameful

i agree he did it to scare away conservatives. i recognize kerry for what he is, an opportunist career politician who will do whatever it takes to win. but its increasingly looking like that defines cheney as well.

you talk about shameful? somebody in YOUR party calls YOUR daughter a selfish hedonist because she's lesbian... people in YOUR party actively e-mail and preach about the evils of homosexuality and the inhumanity of it. Yet you don't say shit. That's SHAMEFUL.

 

[MissileMan]

So when Cheney mentioned his daughter on the campaign trail, what was that, "scare tactics"?

This is another non-issue Republicans are trying to push to keep Iraq and the economy out of the news, and so far it is working. And kudos on trying to push more swiftboat BS down our throats.

He mentioned his daughter when asked about his stand on gay marriage. He wasn't pandering to a room full of gays trying to get votes by saying his daughter was gay. There's a huge difference.

 

[onedomino]

Any particular person's sexual orientation is a private matter and is not to be used as cynical ammunition for cheap political salvos. Any reasonable degree of civility would not permit the children and relatives of politicians to be used as political fodder.

No one posting on this board is qualified to pass judgment on the Cheneys' worth as parents.

 

[Gem]

I love this notion that it is somehow ok to talk about a gay person's sexuality as a political point. If Bush had said, "I happen to know that Alexandra Kerry sleeps with men, and enjoys it. I would imagine that sleeping with men for her, is totally natural," Nato you would be in here screaming that Bush had lost his mind.

The issue, that you are missing totally by making this about homosexuality (just like Kerry wants), is that the Cheney's are NOT mad about their daughter being gay, or about Kerry knowing it. The Cheney's are mad because their daughter's sex life was used as talking points by Kerry in front of the entire world on national television.

Whether she prefers her sex life to involve men or women is irrelevant.

Kerry brought up the child of his competition and spoke about their personal life to win points with voters...it breaks an unspoken but well known code of ethics, which is why so many people were taken aback by his actions.

What you need to ask yourself is WHY. WHY did Kerry do that?

Some feel that he was complementing the Cheney's on their open and loving relationship with their gay daughter. But do you really think that in the midst of a VERY CLOSE and VERY UNKIND election year one side of the opposition just up and decides to make their opponents look like reasonable, open-minded men that they REALLY NEED to compliment on national tv??? I'm sorry...but GIVE ME A BREAK!

Ok, if you are logical enough to understand that Kerry and/or Edwards were NOT attempting to complement their opponent...then we can move on.

Neither Bush nor Kerry have said anything in the past few months that hasn't been worked over by their handlers...they have hundreds of people (Kerry keeps calling in more) telling them what to say to win votes.

Kerry especially, is cool, collected, and intensely well-prepared. He would not slip a line in about Cheney's daughter without having it cleared first...so what are the options

1. He and his handlers said, "Hey, lets compliment the Cheney's cause we like the way they act towards Mary Cheney, and its always a good idea to bring up GOOD things about your opposition in the middle of a dead heat."

2. He and his handlers said, "Hey, right-wing nutbags are bigots...perhaps, since Cheney DOESN'T talk about his daughters sex life unless asked, some of the bigots DON'T know about his lesbian daughter...and they will be so grossed out they will vote for me cause my daughters are straight."

3. He and his handlers said, "Hey, Cheney was obviously uncomfortable when Edwards commented on his daughter at the VP debate...maybe we can get them to do something...like get upset about me mentioning their daughters sex life on national tv...and then we can have people peg them as anti-gay...adding more votes to my side."

I'm sorry, but some combination of 2 and 3 sound a WHOLE LOT MORE LIKELY than 1.


I find it intensely intriguing that the people who claim to support gay rights seem to be the ones who feel that people who are open about the fact that they are homosexual somehow have given up their right to privacy. It is that privacy that all straight people assume they have, the right to not have their sexlife bantered around publically...certainly the right not to have it used as political fodder without permission (weren't these the same people outraged about Clinton's sex life being an issue?) But somehow, when it is a gay person's sexuality...its alright to discuss it nationally without her permission...I find that to be a shocking example of prejudice towards the gay community. Affording them equal rights ALSO includes affording them the right to privacy...


P.S. As a sidenote, or more appropriately, an afterthought. Mary Cheney is a 30-something year old woman who seems to get along quite well with both of her parents, her partner seems to be part of their lives as well. She is working, BY CHOICE, for her father's campaign in efforts to get him (AND BUSH!) back for another 4 years. These are not the actions of a woman who does not feel loved and respected by her family. These are not the actions of a woman whos mother feels "shame" about her. To use her word, SHAME on Elizabeth Edwards for suggesting such a thing.

 

[NATO AIR]

gem, i almost totally agree with you. i even said kerry did it to scare or put doubt in the hearts of social conservatives.

but check this out, i posted that link with alan keyes (the GOP senator hopeful for illinois) statement about mary cheney. where was the outrage then? where was mrs. cheney defending her daughter? where was dick cheney? if someone slandered my daughter or son, i would be tempted to beat the shit out of them, and would say it on national TV.... there are some things beyond politics, and condemning the daughter of someone for her sexuality is way beyond anything acceptable.

he made a shrewd, badly calculated political move... stupid because the country already knows the cheneys have a lesbian daughter because both mom and dad the vp have said it publically,both at political and social events.
did kerry condemn her or criticize her?
no, but the cheneys were all up in arms as well as the majority of the people on this board and in the GOP.

did alan keyes do that? HELL YES.
WHERE THE HELL WAS EVERYBODY WHEN KEYES SAID THAT? WHERE WERE THE PROTESTS AND THE OUTRAGE?

HYPOCRITES!

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

Alright see this is the one thing that pisses me off... the Cheneys have openly, publically talked about their daughter being a lesbian, at social and politicial events, in national interviews for magazines, internet and TV. so how the fuck does kerry "OUT" her on national TV? damn near everybody knew about it already. he was making a simple political point that i for one actually agree with.

you have a lesbian daughter that you accept and love. how then can you support the gay bashing of a great number of republicans both in the white house and in the party as a whole?
the democrats are not the ones with a substantial anti-gay base....the republicans are. you see it on the board, there are some folks who are downright bigots. i respect their free speech and they're mostly good folks aside from that, but it scares the living daylights out of me at times.



so let me get this straight, the cheneys are outraged that kerry reminded the nation their daughter is gay... alright, but alan keyes and other republicans can trash her and other gays and they have no problem with it?
SHAMEFUL! WTF kind of parents are they? who are they to act shocked and hurt with kerry? they need to be mad as hell at some members of their own party.

BECAUSE BUSH IS PANDERING TO BIGOTS AND HE WANTS THEIR VOTES.... bush isn't stupid, he knows how to steal conservative democrat votes by swinging them to vote for him on that main issue: gay marriage and gays in general.

kerry obviously did this to knock off a point or two of bush's base, people who may not have realized or known much about the VP having a gay daughter and are angry at this realization. perhaps he also did it to showcase the hypocricy evident on this issue within the bush-cheney ticket.

It's pretty simple. Bush isn't stupid, and neither am I. Aiming at undecided voters that are prejudice against homosexuals is exactly what John Kerry was doing. Really, what did Kerry's statement have to do with the question that had been posed?

As far as the Keyes situation, there is a bit of a difference. What he said actually had to do with the topic at hand, and was not during a nationally televised debate. After saying homosexuality is "selfish hedonism," Keyes was asked if that made Mary Cheney "a selfish hedonist." Keyes said, "Of course she is. That goes by definition." Caertainly not a nice thing to say, but not an outright attack on Mary Cheney either.

The question to Keyes actually put him in a pickle. After taking that stance, what was he suppose to say? If he had dodged the question, it would have looked bad, and he couldn't very well say, "No, I mean every homosexual except Mary Cheney."

Now, all that said, I think Alan Keyes sucks and I would just as soon leave the whole Mary Cheney incident in the past.

 

[NATO AIR]

It's pretty simple. Bush isn't stupid, and neither am I. Aiming at undecided voters that are prejudice against homosexuals is exactly what John Kerry was doing. Really, what did Kerry's statement have to do with the question that had been posed?

As far as the Keyes situation, there is a bit of a difference. What he said actually had to do with the topic at hand, and was not during a nationally televised debate. After saying homosexuality is "selfish hedonism," Keyes was asked if that made Mary Cheney "a selfish hedonist." Keyes said, "Of course she is. That goes by definition." Caertainly not a nice thing to say, but not an outright attack on Mary Cheney either.

The question to Keyes actually put him in a pickle. After taking that stance, what was he suppose to say? If he had dodged the question, it would have looked bad, and he couldn't very well say, "No, I mean every homosexual except Mary Cheney."

Now, all that said, I think Alan Keyes sucks and I would just as soon leave the whole Mary Cheney incident in the past.

i'd love to leave it in the past too but the cheneys want to claim victimhood of their daughter... after they failed to defend her from keyes's statement. and that's hypocritical and pisses me off.

keyes could have simply said, i have no comment on the VP's personal family. he is my VP and i don't criticize the party chain of command, especially not in election year. instead, he did attack her (though it wasn't on a national debate).

i agree it would have made him look bad to not answer, but sometimes to do the right thing you have to take a hit. bush does that a lot, he sticks to his guns and his beliefs, and he sometimes get penalized for it by the polls and by politics. he's still doing the right thing, and that's why in the end, many respect him and he'll get reelected.

kerry and keyes do not, they do whatever they can to get elected... and sadly, it seems, so do the cheneys (who play politics with their daughter just as bad as kerry did).

 

[Jimmyeatworld]

i'd love to leave it in the past too but the cheneys want to claim victimhood of their daughter... after they failed to defend her from keyes's statement. and that's hypocritical and pisses me off.

keyes could have simply said, i have no comment on the VP's personal family. he is my VP and i don't criticize the party chain of command, especially not in election year. instead, he did attack her (though it wasn't on a national debate).

i agree it would have made him look bad to not answer, but sometimes to do the right thing you have to take a hit. bush does that a lot, he sticks to his guns and his beliefs, and he sometimes get penalized for it by the polls and by politics. he's still doing the right thing, and that's why in the end, many respect him and he'll get reelected.

kerry and keyes do not, they do whatever they can to get elected... and sadly, it seems, so do the cheneys (who play politics with their daughter just as bad as kerry did).

That's true. A no comment from Keyes might have looked a little bad, but it would probably have blown over quicker and not made things as uncomfortable.

 

[NATO AIR]

stripped down question for all those who are in a tizzy over what i've posted...

if the cheneys were correct in criticizing and condemning john kerry for putting their daughter's sexuality in the presidental debate,
how are they correct in NOT criticizing and condemning GOP CANDIDATE FOR US SENATOR IN ILLINOIS Alan Keyes for calling their daughter a "selfish hedonist"?

explain

 

[fubar]

Theresa heinz disgraced her dead husbands name by financing her new husbands campaign.

Therese is fat, and looks like Ted Kennedy's sister,

Edwards looks gay.

The Kerry daughter is too flat chested to wear see through dresses in Cannes.

Those are examples of the same sort of thing Kerry did when he gratuously mentioned Mary C. The reason these true facts weren't used in the campaign is because they cross the line of behaviour. Kerry doesn't seem to understand this.

 

[NATO AIR]

Theresa heinz disgraced her dead husbands name by financing her new husbands campaign.

Therese is fat, and looks like Ted Kennedy's sister,

Edwards looks gay.

The Kerry daughter is too flat chested to wear see through dresses in Cannes.

Those are examples of the same sort of thing Kerry did when he gratuously mentioned Mary C. The reason these true facts weren't used in the campaign is because they cross the line of behaviour. Kerry doesn't seem to understand this.

huh? those are opinions. just like alan keyes saying mary cheney was a selfish hedonist.

kerry mentioned a fact (cold, political motivation for it no less)

and here's dick cheney and his wife talking about that fact for political points...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5817720/
dick cheney, his wife and his daughter at a BUSH-CHENEY CAMPAIGN TOWN HALL MEETING in Iowa on aug.25, 2004
Lynne and I have a gay daughter, so it’s an issue our family is very familiar with,” Cheney told an audience that included his daughter.

 

[Gem]

Nato Air,

I think what people are trying to hit on here was the context being different.

Alan Keyes did not say, "I hate homosexuals...I even hate Mary Cheney." He made his (imo) disgusting comments about homosexuals, and then some reporter thought, "A-HA I GOT HIM!! I can ask him about Cheney's daughter and see if he has the brass balls to stick to that opinion THEN!! HAHAH!" Although much to the surprise of the press, Keyes stuck to his guns and said, "Yep, her too."

Alan Keyes did not highlight Mary Cheney, a reported did. Alan Keyes only stuck to his guns on his (again, imo) ridiculous opinion. As we all know, to recant on his opinion because it might upset the VP would have made him look, not only like a bigot, but like a flip-flopping idiot

The Cheney's, I would imagine, are not close friends with Alan Keyes...but to rage at him because he has negative feelings about homosexuality would be a waste of time...some people in the US don't like gays...Cheney can't challenge all of them to a fistfight.

What Kerry did was WHOLLY different. The question HE was asked could have been dealt with 100 different ways, all of which could leave out specifically highlighting Cheney's daughter...again, it would be as if Keyes stood up at a campaign podium and said, "To begin, I'd like to say I think that Mary Cheney is going to Hell...now, on to tax reform."

Kerry chose to mention Mary Cheney, Keyes was asked his opinion of Mary Cheney. Those are different circumstances.

Now, because I really do try to remain intellectually honest about all of this...it wouldn't suprise me in the slightest if Cheney had placed a private call to Keyes telling him to knock it the f*ck off...but that because he was a Republican during an election year Cheney showed him the respect of doing it in private...

However, is that hypocritical? Or just common sense? Do you react to your friends busting on the shirt your wore out last night the same way you react to someone you hate telling you you look like crap??? No, of course not. Because you understand that different situations call for different reactions.

Keyes is a bigot. Cheney was probably well aware of that before this incident. Keyes did not delibrately bring up Mary Cheney, he responded honestly when asked.

Kerry is (I'm guessing) NOT a bigot. He is running for President against the man Cheney is running with. And in the middle of a globally televised event, Kerry, without provocation, brought up the sexuality of his child to win political points.

While I was disgusted by Keyes statements, I still think that there are major differences between these two events...hence why the Cheneys reacted differently to each event.

 

[Merlin1047]

So when Cheney mentioned his daughter on the campaign trail, what was that, "scare tactics"?

This is another non-issue Republicans are trying to push to keep Iraq and the economy out of the news, and so far it is working. And kudos on trying to push more swiftboat BS down our throats.

Poop.

I always enjoy watching you go into meltdown when confronted with the truth. Swiftboat "BS" indeed. Once again you prove that libs like yourself have no respect for veterans or the military. You attempt to use kerry's so-called "service" to your advantage and you trot out veterans as window dressing so long as they are useful tools. But let a veteran stand up and tell what he knows to be the actual truth and your true colors come out.

You sir, are thoroughly disgusting and so is your candidate.

 

[eric]

I always enjoy watching you go into meltdown when confronted with the truth. Swiftboat "BS" indeed. Once again you prove that libs like yourself have no respect for veterans or the military. You attempt to use kerry's so-called "service" to your advantage and you trot out veterans as window dressing so long as they are useful tools. But let a veteran stand up and tell what he knows to be the actual truth and your true colors come out.

You sir, are thoroughly disgusting and so is your candidate.

 

[tim_duncan2000]

Now, because I really do try to remain intellectually honest about all of this...it wouldn't suprise me in the slightest if Cheney had placed a private call to Keyes telling him to knock it the f*ck off...but that because he was a Republican during an election year Cheney showed him the respect of doing it in private...

However, is that hypocritical? Or just common sense? Do you react to your friends busting on the shirt your wore out last night the same way you react to someone you hate telling you you look like crap??? No, of course not. Because you understand that different situations call for different reactions.

That's probably what it has do with.

This is another non-issue Republicans are trying to push to keep Iraq and the economy out of the news, and so far it is working. And kudos on trying to push more swiftboat BS down our throats.

Non-issue? If the situation was reversed (a Republican mentioning a Democrat's daughter), it wouldn't be a non-issue.

I also think it's odd how you mention Iraq and the economy as if to say that the Democrats are strong in those areas. I guess they are strong in those areas if you fall for the rhetoric and ignore the facts. Kerry voted for the war and has made many quotes like the one in my signature.

On the economy, Kerry just makes up stuff, takes stuff out of context, or just ignores stuff. He didn't like the old misery index, which didn't make Bush look bad enough, and came up with a new one where he cherry-picked certain arbitrary categories. Here is what I mean:

By that classic misery measure the country is faring better than average under Bush: the unemployment rate for March was 5.7% -- which is just 0.1% above the average for all months since 1948. And the inflation rate remains historically low – the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index rose only 1.7% in the 12 months ending in February, the most recent month on record. So the classic “misery index” number is currently 7.4.

That's lower than it's been in all but 20 of the previous 56 years on record. It never got this low during any of the years under Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan or Bush's father.

And the classic "misery index" was higher in every one of Clinton's first four years than it has been in any of Bush's years. It was not until Clinton's second term that the long economic boom of the 1990's pulled the index down to below its current level.
...

But elsewhere the Kerry index selects those figures that look the worst. It includes median family income before taxes, for example. But that doesn't measure the typical family's take-home pay as well as the Census Bureau's measure of after-tax income. Worth noting is that the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities -- a liberal group often at odds with Bush's policies -- issued a report April 12 saying that the federal tax burden on the typical middle-income family of four was at its lowest level in decades. The Kerry index reflects none of the benefit of the Bush tax cuts. After-tax income has fallen, but not by as much as income before taxes.

Contributing the most to the gloomy picture presented by Kerry's index is college tuition. Kerry aides used only the figure for four-year public colleges and universities, which has shot up 13% under Bush, even after adjusting for inflation. But they excluded tuition for private colleges and universities, which went up only 5%. (Both figures are from the College Board's annual survey of college costs.)

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=170

Kerry is still claiming that jobs being created now pay $9,000 less than jobs that were lost, a fanciful figure as we've noted previously.



Kerry on Jobs
St. Louis, MO:

Sept. 10, 2004

Kerry: I think sending jobs overseas and having a tax cut - tax benefit that actually rewards the company that goes overseas, I think that's "W." Wrong choice, wrong direction, wrong leadership for America. And the right thing to do is to start creating those jobs here, and to do smart things that help us invest in science and technology, and create the high paying jobs of the future so we're not settling for jobs that pay us $9,000 less than the jobs that are going overseas.


In a recent speech in St. Louis, for example, he referred to "jobs that pay us $9,000 less than the jobs that are going overseas." But that relies on figures from the liberal Economic Policy Institute comparing average pay in broad industries, not the pay of specific jobs that have been lost or gained. Not even EPI claims that its figures show what Kerry says, a $9,000 difference between new and old jobs.

And as we've pointed out before, more detailed government data that focus on occupations, rather than industries, tell a different story. Higher-paid occupations, like managers (who can be in any industry) and health professionals, are growing faster.

A new study of job quality, by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, states that "Recent estimates of higher-paying industry job growth have rebounded," as typically happens as the economy expands.

And if new jobs are really paying $9,000 less than the old ones, as Kerry claims, how can average hourly earnings and average weekly earnings be going up? The latest figures on wages from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, released Sept. 16, show that average hourly earnings for rank-and-file workers (about 80% of the private workforce) were 2.6% higher in August than they had been when Bush took office, even after adjusting for inflation.

Kerry would be accurate in saying that today's jobs may be paying less. But the fact is economists disagree about that, and certainly can't calculate an average dollar difference.

Kerry's stump speech seldom fails to attack Bush for a "tax benefit that actually rewards the company that goes overseas," as he did in the St. Louis speech. But as we've said before, that tax provision was there long before Bush took office, and even liberal economists agree it's a pretty small influence on where companies locate factories. Changing that tax provision would do very little in terms of US jobs.

http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=260

U.S. job creation continued to move ahead at a steady pace with the announcement Friday that 96,000 non-farm payrolls were added to the economy. Over the past thirteen months 1.9 million new jobs have been created. The unemployment rate stands at a historically low 5.4 percent. One hundred forty million Americans are now working, a new U.S. record.

The brightest spot in the Labor Department’s September report is a 3.2 percent annual rate of increase for third quarter hours worked. This is the strongest quarterly rise in seven years. It probably foreshadows 5 percent real GDP growth for the third quarter, a number that will be released on the last Friday before the Tuesday presidential election.

At lower personal tax-rates more people are working, and they are working longer hours to produce more. This is consistent with supply-side thinking that lower taxes enabling people to keep more of what they earn generate new incentives for greater work effort.

As for wages, average hourly earnings have increased by 3.1 percent annually through September. This number has been steadily rising over the past year from a meager 0.8 percent increase registered in October 2003.

Since George W. Bush was elected President, 585,000 payrolls have been lost. However, 1.69 million more people are working today according to the Labor Department’s other jobs survey -- the household survey. Since the end of the recession in late 2001, 908,000 new payroll jobs have been created, but 3.4 million more people have gone to work since then, according to the household survey.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics argues that on a month to month basis the household survey is more volatile than the establishment payroll survey. However, longer-term trends for the population survey are significant.

In order to put the two surveys on a more comparable basis, the BLS has adopted a methodology that removes self-employed workers from the household survey and also takes out the multiple (and redundant) job tallies in the payroll count. As a rule of thumb, it is useful to split the difference between the two surveys in order to get a better sense of the real new jobs number.

Once you do this, you see that 553,000 jobs have been created during the Bush administration. Since the end of the recession, this method produces 2.2 million newly employed.

The Kerry campaign has defined the economy in terms of the weaker payroll survey numbers. But the most comprehensive measure of economic output is still the gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation. Hopefully, President Bush will emphasize GDP in the remaining weeks of the campaign. During the ten recovery quarters since the end of 2001, real GDP growth has averaged 3.4 percent, in line with its long-run post-WWII annual expansion average of the past 57 years. Over the past four quarters since the supply-side tax cuts legislated in the spring of 2003, real economic growth has jumped to 4.8 percent.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/larrykudlow/lk20041011.shtml

 

[Merlin1047]

you talk about shameful? somebody in YOUR party calls YOUR daughter a selfish hedonist because she's lesbian... people in YOUR party actively e-mail and preach about the evils of homosexuality and the inhumanity of it. Yet you don't say shit. That's SHAMEFUL.

I disagree. It is quite likely that Cheney views his daughter's conduct as shameful and disgraceful. Most likely the Cheneys are distressed and perhaps even disgusted by their daughter's lifestyle. I fail to understand how you can characterize that as shameful.

Seems to me that Cheney loves his daughter despite the fact that he is obviously repulsed by her homosexual conduct. That is admirable, not shameful.

 

[NATO AIR]

I disagree. It is quite likely that Cheney views his daughter's conduct as shameful and disgraceful. Most likely the Cheneys are distressed and perhaps even disgusted by their daughter's lifestyle. I fail to understand how you can characterize that as shameful.

Seems to me that Cheney loves his daughter despite the fact that he is obviously repulsed by her homosexual conduct. That is admirable, not shameful.

merlin, why did lynne cheney author a trashy lesbian romance novel then?

these folks are hypocrites through and through