{"id":16206,"date":"2008-07-15T14:16:45","date_gmt":"2008-07-15T18:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/16206.html"},"modified":"2008-07-15T14:16:45","modified_gmt":"2008-07-15T18:16:45","slug":"bush-still-committed-to-changing-the-psychology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-still-committed-to-changing-the-psychology\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush still committed to ‘changing the psychology’"},"content":{"rendered":"

After Phil Gramm’s recent comments about a “mental recession,” and the notion that we make up a “nation of whiners,” I expected leading Republicans to stop talking so much about psychology and the economy.<\/p>\n

No such luck. Here’s the president this morning, during a White House press conference, in response to a question about whether the nation is “headed for a recession.”<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

The video shows Bush talking about all the things members of Congress can do to help the economy. “I readily concede that, you know, [drilling is] not going to produce a barrel of oil tomorrow, but it is going to change the psychology that demand will constantly outstrip supply,” Bush said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Later, in the same press conference, the president emphasized the need to change the “psychology in the oil market,” twice.<\/p>\n

Far be it for me to offer Republican leaders advice, but I don’t think they appreciate how foolish all of this “psychological” talk makes them sound.
\n
\nOf course, it’s not just Bush; McCain keeps doing the same thing.<\/p>\n

In January<\/a>, here’s how McCain described economic problems: “A lot of this is psychological. A lot of it’s psychological. Because I agree the fundamentals of our economy is still strong.”
\nAnd in April<\/a>, McCain said, “[A] lot of our problems today are psychological.” He said he intended to give voters “a little psychological boost,” in lieu of a meaningful policy.<\/p>\n

And in June<\/a>, McCain said he’s still focused on the “psychological impact” of various policies.<\/p>\n

The Jed Report pulled together a clip featuring all of this very misguided talk:<\/p>\n

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Now, I suppose I know what Bush and McCain are trying to say when they talk about consumer confidence and the impact it has on the economy, but these constant references to “psychology” make it sound as if they think economic problems are a figment of our collective imaginations, or worse, that symbolic-but-meaningless policy gestures can placate us into feeling confident again.<\/p>\n

In other words, they need a new talking point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After Phil Gramm’s recent comments about a “mental recession,” and the notion that we make up a “nation of whiners,” I expected leading Republicans to stop talking so much about psychology and the economy. No such luck. Here’s the president this morning, during a White House press conference, in response to a question about whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}