43: Clueless on Recession?

03 December 2008 |permalink | email article

Lame-duck George W. Bush was unusually reflective in interviews with ABC’s Charlie Gibson aboard Marine One and at Camp David, calling intelligence failures in Iraq the “biggest regret” of his presidency.

But since Monday’s disclosure by the National Bureau of Economics that America entered a recession in December 2007, making it the longest since the early ‘80s, the interview has taken on increased significance.

Bush, in a Feb. 26, 2008 radio interview said the economy was not in a recession. “I don’t think we will go into a recession. We’re in a slowdown, and there’s a difference.” Press Secretary Dana Perino said much the same thing for months.

But at a press briefing on Oct. 22, when asked to comment on British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s statement that his country should expect a recession, Perino declined to say that a recession was likely in the U.S. “We don’t forecast recessions from here.”

Gibson asked about the possibility of missed economic signals and Bush replied, “I can remember sitting in the Roosevelt Room with Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke…and they said to me that if we don’t act boldly, Mr. President, we could be in a depression greater than the Great Depression.”

“When was that?” Gibson wondered.

“That was, I would say, five weeks, four weeks after we began to deal with some—like AIG. And that was right before we went to Congress for the $700 billion. If that’s the case … this administration will do everything we can to safeguard the financial system.”

The President added, “And so we’re moving—hard.”

But questions remain about White House inaction on the recession: what did Bush know, when did he know it and why did he not move more rapidly months before that fateful wake-up chat in the Roosevelt Room?

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