Clearly, the Democrats have decided that the American people will (in that bizarre Clintonian concept) “compartmentalize” their approval of the Commander-in-Chief and their supposed concern about his domestic agenda. It’s possible they’re right, but if the particular tactic they’ve chosen to employ works, I once again weep for the intelligence and economic perspicacity of the populace.

Apparently, they’re running the phrase “Bush recession” up the flagpole to see how many salute. And their apparent rationale (I can see no other, since it’s been their main gripe with his economic policy from day one, if not day negative six months–i.e., during the campaign, as a “risky tax scheme”) is his “gargantuan (i.e., on the order of a percent of the GDP over the period) tax cut”.

Now let’s tie one intellectual hand behind our back, and ignore the fact that the recession probably started within two months of Bush being sweared in, and that the economy was in fact already slowing in the summer before the election, and that economies don’t turn on a dime, so our current condition was largely due to decisions made more than a year ago (ignoring the spike from the September attacks–surely even they aren’t going to attempt to blame Bush for that?).

Can these Democrats cite a single historical precedent for a recession being caused by a tax cut?

For extra credit, can they put forth a plausible theoretical mechanism by which this might occur?

No, I didn’t think they could…

Oh, well, at least we can be thankful that we don’t have Al Gore around any more with his mindless and oxymoronic phrase, “blowing a hole in the deficit.”