GOP'ish candidates

[smc]

Originally Posted by TracyCoxx

... Did you know the unemployment rate under Bush is almost half of the unemployment rate under Obama? ...

In "Chapters from My Autobiography," published in the North American Review in 1906, Mark Twain wrote: "Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics'."

Tracy Coxx knows full well that the current Great Recession began under Bush's watch, and that the statistic to which he alludes simply reflects what Obama inherited from Bush. The unemployment rate rose in the aftermath of the financial meltdown that began in 2007 and proceeded through 2008, while Bush was still in office. By the time Obama was sworn in, the Recession was in full force. To take out of context a statistic about the unemployment rate to make this political point is classic Tracy Coxx, and makes what Tracy wrote -- in the words of Mark Twain -- a lie.