Posted 8:22 AM by steve

Sure, the Commerce Department is reporting that the US economy shrunk by 0.3 percent in the third quarter, but keep in mind that, as I outlined 4 years ago, the Commerce Department has a habit - especially during the Bush years - of making initial estimates that are too low, making it look like the economy is doing worse than it actually is.

And why does this matter? Well, if you're a Democrat running for President and hoping to benefit from voter anxiety over the economy, the worse the economy seems to be, the better it is for your chances.

But the career bureaucrats in the Commerce Department would never do anything like fiddle with the methodology in order to benefit a particular candidate, would they? Well, maybe once upon time, true professionals would not let their political positions influence their work... but given that journalists have thrown away any pretense of being neutral, state bureaucrats in Ohio approved partisan-motivated investigations into Joe the Plumber and Department of Justice prosecutors who have given lots of money to Obama aren't investigating the numerous complaints of voting fraud on the part of Obama supporters, why should anyone continue to believe in the fiction that there is any corner of the state and federal bureaucracy that has maintained its professionalism?

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