In a piece that goes to great lengths to argue that the economy has not "rebounded," Tom Blumer, on the Instapundit/Pajamas Internet site, says that when he saw the word "rebound" used in the media, he was reminded of the scene from the movie "Breaking Away," where the dad used car salesman says to the son, half increduously, "[you gave them a] refund? Refund???!!"
Which reminded us of Jim Mora:
As for Blumer -- while the economy has not fully recovered, and (as is almost always the case with macroeconomics, despite the plethora of prognosticators that predict otherwise) we can't be sure when or to what it extent it will fully recover -- one has to wonder just how this exact same set of facts would be spun by Blumer were, say the situation reversed, and had Obama been the President for the past eight years and Bush now in office for the past year. (Or even if just McCain or Huckabee or (frightening as it is), Palin, were president, instead of Obama.)
It probably would read like a completely different reality; with Blumer, instead of cherry picking some reporter who probably did overstate the recovery (despite the fact that was not his point) going half apesh*t about how the media was not talking up how well the economy was doing, how a great catastrophe had been averted, and what a great job the administration had been doing.
Seriously. Who stoops to this actual argument:
You haven’t "rebounded' until you’re back to where you were.Yeah you have. Just not fully.
Or, instead, next time your teammate takes a shot from the three point line in basketball, and inside the guard, you pull down the "rebound," just remember: It's not a rebound, because the ball did not get back to the three point line.
Even if one agrees that the word "rebound" (qualified or not, in which case the argument would be that it should have been qualified, which is a whisper compared to the conniption fit that Blumer throws by saying "rebound" like Mora said "playoffs" (or the Breaking Away character's dad said "refund?!!")), is not perfect, Blumer also uses the wrong measure; namely the last quarter of growth, when the issue is whether the economy has rebounded back to some measure of vitality, in which case, an average growth would be more appropriate.
But the first part of that equation is whether the economy has (so far) rebounded out of the enormous hole it was in. The answer to that, however temporary (or not, you predict), is yes. Just not in Blumer's world, with Obama as president.
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