Last Call

President Obama will never be good enough for the "progressives".

This week, amid the hullabaloo over President Barack Obama's Deficit Dinner Diplomacy, and Sen. Rand Paul's 13-hour filibuster-cum-dissertation on drone strikes and civil liberties, financial news-watchers touted a milestone in their lives of Market Worship. We speak, of course, of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which on Tuesday hit an "all-time high" of 14,253.77. The good times rolled steady on through the week, and the Dow closed Friday at 14,397.07.

Of course, the notion that these were "record" highs was not, strictly speaking, true. As Jeff Cox as CNBC pointed out, "in inflation-adjusted dollars, the Dow would need to hit 15,731.54 to break the record." Nevertheless, the exciting new ordinal number sitting on the stock market index set off a chorus of hallelujahs. After all, this was the highest mark it had hit since October 2007. (Of course, if we recall correctly, it was about that time that all of our more recent tragic economic events began to occur.)

The fluctuations of the Dow are typically pored over, by the media, in the same way the ancient oracles pieced through the entrails of birds, seeking for whatever path leads to the most prosperity. And in the world of politics, partisans on both sides are quick to point to the Dow as generic confirmation that their policies are working. As long as the story suits their narrative, anyway. 

Authors Jason Linkins and Zach Carter continue on with their open contempt for President Obama, Democrats, the people who voted for them, the people who support them, and the people who seem to think that maybe there's hope.  Suckers!  Rubes!

I do notice there's one word missing from the article:  Bush.   And "GOP" doesn't get a mention until 80% of the way through the article:

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Dow is hitting this peak at a time when everyone in the world knows that the debate over the sequestration -- whose cuts have awesome recession-generating powers! -- has gone into vapor-lock, with the GOP refusing to compromise on raising revenues, through the very tax reform proposals that formed the basis of the party's recent presidential campaign. 

The GOP is far more responsible for the mess we're in, guys.  The functional depression we've been in?  That wasn't President Obama at the helm in 2006-2008.

Try again.