Thursday, September 04, 2003

Hey George Will! How 'bout this liar?

If he was looking for good news on Labor Day, and he was, cold hard reality forced Shrubya to lie even about the creation of one new job. Yep, Shrubya was proud to say that in the face of 3,000,000 lost jobs he had at least overseen the creation of 1 new one. Uh, no.

President Bush announced Monday that he is creating a new position of manufacturing czar, otherwise known as the assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing and services, to focus on boosting the faltering manufacturing sector.

Turns out this is not really so new, congressional and Commerce Department folks say. The existing post of assistant commerce secretary for trade development will get the new name, along with some new functions. The trade post was probably going to be eliminated anyway as part of a long-running reorganization of the Commerce Department's International Trade Administration.

"I guess we can't say the new manufacturing initiative has created at least one new job after all," a Senate Republican aide quipped to our colleague Jonathan Weisman.

And the change apparently was not Bush's idea. It was mandated in the House version of the 2004 Commerce, Justice and State appropriations bill.

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