GWB & Co. keep doing this stuff. By the election they'll have it straightened out. I think they don't realize how much the mood of the country has changed in the last year. Folks may not have noticed all of this back then.

Washington Post

In recent weeks, the White House has had to endure its chief economist's positive comments about job "outsourcing," or sending work overseas; controversial passages in the annual Economic Report of the President; questions over the legitimacy of Bush's 2005 budget; a California swing in which Bush bragged about the possible addition of two or three jobs to a 14-person business in Bakersfield and a flap over a job-creation forecast that not even the president could stand by.

On March 1, a host of U.S. industries began paying trade sanctions to Europe because Congress and the White House have not replaced illegal export subsidies with new aid for ailing manufacturers.

But the non-naming of Anthony F. Raimondo on Thursday as assistant commerce secretary for manufacturing and services has brought the concerns to a boil.

The long-anticipated announcement of a manufacturing czar was supposed to be a good-news day for a White House struggling with its economic message. Instead the planned, smiling photo op fizzled when it came to light that a year ago Bush's choice had opened a major plant in Beijing.