Good News is No News

This bit of retro-good news won’t be good for anything more than some White House bragging rights:

The 2001 recession, already among the mildest in modern U.S. economic history, was even slightly shallower than earlier estimated, according to a comprehensive revision of national income and production figures released yesterday by the Commerce Department.

The drop in the nation’s gross domestic product from the first quarter of 2001 to the fourth quarter, when the recession ended, was only 0.5 percent rather than 0.6 percent, according to the revisions, which are done every five years.

That’s all fine and dandy and heartening — but without some strong job creation over the next nine months, Bush faces slimmed-down election chances next fall.