Today’s edition of quick hits.
* Oh my: “Dangerous cracks are appearing in the nation’s job market. Employers slashed jobs by the largest amount in five years — and hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the labor force — an ominous sign that the country is falling toward a recession or has already toppled into one. For the second straight month, nervous employers got rid of jobs nationwide. In February, they sliced payrolls by 63,000, even deeper than the 22,000 positions cut in January, the Labor Department reported Friday. The grim snapshot of the country’s employment climate underscored the heavy toll the housing and credit debacles are taking on companies, jobseekers and the economy as a whole.”
* Finding an analyst who doesn’t think we’re in a recession has become rather difficult.
* And then, of course, there’s the market: “Stocks tumbled for a second consecutive session Friday after the government’s February jobs report revealed employers slashed payrolls last month, compounding fears that the U.S. economy is succumbing to recession. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 146 points, bringing its two-day slide to 370. This week’s declines in the three major stock indexes to their lowest settlements since 2006 came despite the Federal Reserve’s announcement that it would take steps to aid the credit markets.”
* Consumer debt has hit $2.52 trillion. Wow.
* The New York Observer talked to former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, an Obama supporter, about the Samantha Power controversy. Brzezinski thinks she got a raw deal, adding, “I don’t think she should have resigned.”
* On a related note, the Clinton campaign acted with amazing speed to turn the Power controversy into yet another fundraising opportunity.
* WaPo: “A new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is scheduled to be completed this month.” Whether anyone gets to see it is another matter entirely.
* It’s about damn time: “The Senate yesterday approved the most far-reaching changes to the nation’s product safety system in a generation, responding to recalls of millions of lead-laced toys that rattled consumers last year.” The Bush administration rejects the very idea of protecting consumer safety through government regulation; fortunately there’s a Democratic Congress.
* This hasn’t generated a lot of attention yet, but come January, neither Gen. David Petraeus nor U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker will be in Iraq; they’ll be back home.
* Creationists probably won’t care for this at all.
* I wonder what the story is here: “Later today, Bradley Blakeman will step aside as president of Freedom’s Watch, an independent conservative organization expected to play a major role in the 2008 election. ‘I will stay through transition and then I will go back to my consulting business,’ Blakeman said in a brief interview today. ‘I resigned, they didn’t ask for my resignation.’ Blakeman spent several years earlier this decade serving in the administration of President George W. Bush.”
* Did the Clinton campaign darken an image of Obama for an attack ad? Kevin Drum isn’t buying it: “Hillary Clinton is running a rough campaign, and I’m pretty unhappy with some of her tactics, but that’s no reason to start hauling out all the old Clinton-hating artillery we came to know and love in the 90s. This ad isn’t evidence of race-baiting or anything else. Time to move on.”
* The other side loves the 3 a.m. ad: “At a Council on Foreign Relations event in D.C. today, as a Hillary adviser touted Clinton’s foreign policy experience, McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann reportedly chimed in with: ‘Please keep running those 3 a.m. ads about who you want to answer the phone, because we like those.'”
* McCain sure does have some interesting friends: “Rep. Rick Renzi, R-Ariz., allegedly defrauded dozens of pro-life organizations for hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his first congressional bid, according to an analysis of the recent indictment against him, a state insurance claim and an interview with an insurance lawyer involved in the case.”
* Interesting: “A longtime protege of President Bush told former U.S. Attorney David Iglesias that he was fired for political reasons and that he shouldn’t fight his ouster, Iglesias says in a new book. ‘This is political,’ Iglesias recalls Texas U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton telling him shortly after he was ousted. ‘If I were you, I’d just go quietly.'”
* And finally, don’t miss Katha Pollitt’s response to Charlotte Allen’s ridiculous anti-woman hit job from the other day: “Why did The Post publish this nonsense? I can’t imagine a great newspaper airing comparable trash talk about any other group. ‘Asians Really Do Just Copy’ ‘No Wonder Africa’s Such a Mess: It’s Full of Black People!’ Misogyny is the last acceptable prejudice, and nowhere more so than in our nation’s clueless and overwhelmingly white-male-controlled media. I can just picture the edit meeting: This time, let’s get a woman to say women are dumb and silly! If readers raise too big a ruckus, Outlook editor John Pomfret can say it was all ‘tongue in cheek.’ Women are dingbats! Get it? Ha. Ha. Ha. Here’s a thought. Maybe there’s another thing women can do besides fluff up their husbands’ pillows: Fill more important jobs at The Washington Post.”
Anything to add? Consider this an end-of-the-day open thread.