The Republican anti-Democrat-attack-ad attack ad is now available on the web.
Complete with smug male voiceover, the ad focuses on “angry, bitter Democrats smearing our President.”
The ad was announced in an email from campaign manager Ken Mehlman. The email claims that Young Master Smirk is creating jobs and strengthening the economy: “President Bush’s leadership has delivered the strongest economic growth in nearly twenty years that is creating jobs.”
Mr. Mehlman’s grasp of the facts is as tenuous as his grammar. For example, this from the New York Times:
“23 months into the recovery, private sector jobs are running nearly seven million workers below the norm of the typical hiring cycle.”
From the same article: “After falling by 2.8 million jobs since early 2001, employment has risen by (only) 240,000 jobs since August.”
Certain pundits believe that this is a result of so many jobs being shipped overseas, where “low level” work like programming (!) can be performed on the cheap for the pukka sahibs in the United States.
I’m not saying that YMS should be building new protectionist walls around white collar tech jobs. Rather, I would prefer that private capital be used to create new industries and new job opportunities, not pay off once and future deficits. I see that as the proper goal of private capital, and not the financing of short term federal government “gimmes” to Dick Cheney’s buddies.
As an aside, I do wonder why certain pundits think there’s a virtue to the United States becoming a nation of project managers or why there is so much noise about outsourcing when half of all such projects fail.