Friday, June 1, 2012

Gail Collins, "Mr. Edwards and the Shrimp": No Mention of Jobs, No Mention of Seamus

I ordinarily don't read Gail Collins's New York Times opinion pieces anymore, which have become tedious, vacuous and repetitive. Today, however, I made an exception and read "Mr. Edwards and the Shrimp" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/02/opinion/john-edwards-and-the-shrimp.html). I was curious whether Collins would relate to the horrifying May jobs report (see: http://money.cnn.com/2012/06/01/news/economy/may-jobs-report/index.htm) and/or again regale us with her lame running "joke" concerning the Romney family dog. Needless to say, no mention of the economy, and this time no mention of Seamus.

How bad is the economy? No one sums it up better than Peter Wehner at Commentary (see: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/06/01/obama-overmatched-by-events/):

"It’s not simply that the unemployment rate rose from 8.1 percent to 8.2 percent, or that it’s remained above 8 percent for 40 consecutive months, or that in May we gained less than 70,000 new jobs. Nor is it simply the fact that in May the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) increased from 5.1 million to 5.4 million. Or that the average work week fell to 34.4 hours. Or that, as John [Steele Gordon] points out, March and April’s jobs reports were revised downward. Or that in May, stocks suffered through their worst month in two years."

So what did Collins tell us about John Edwards in her op-ed?:

"But, somehow, the public realized that this guy who looked so good and sounded so glib was really a fraud."

Peculiar, but I can think of someone else who also "looked so good" and "sounded so glib," who managed to be elected in 2008.

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