READER RICK GIOVANELLI SENDS THIS STORY ON THE ECONOMY from The New York Times and observes, “Don’t you wish Vegas or the online markets would let you bet on things like the number of articles linking a weak economy to President Bush compared to the number of articles (approximately zero) linking him to the strong economy of the past 4-5 years?”

You don’t bet on certainties. But I’m reminded of a passage from Mark Penn’s book on how the media treated the economy in 1992:

I have found over the years that there is often a huge disconnect between belief about the economy and the true economic state of affairs. Until the statistics are actually published, people tend to assess the economy through the eyes of the national media. In 1992, when Bill Clinton won the presidency based on worries about the economy, the statistics that came out after the election showed that the period leading up to November had actually been a period of record growth. . . . In his 1996 State of the Union speech, President Clinton said we had the best economy in thirty years — a statement that sent a flurry of reporters to check actual statistics rather than popular political movements and sweeping, politically motivated statements. The more people looked at the facts, the more they agreed, and six months later, there was near-unanimity that the economy was in good shape. Had the economy changed? No, what had changed was knowledge about the true facts of the economy.

Hmm. Regardless of the data, we get bad economic “news” when there’s a Republican in the White House., and good economic “news” when a Democrat is running for reelection. Perhaps that New York Times headline — “Echo of First Bush” — is more accurate than I first thought . . . .