History's Villains or Blunderers?

The headline is surreal? "Bush and Bernanke see no recession." What, are they blind, idiotic, or is this simply prevarication of a particularly heinous sort? None of the answers to that question flatters the aforementioned, after all, which would you rather be seen as, an imbecile, a bungler, or merely deceitful? Bush has managed, in his off the charts catastrophic Presidency, to play the role of all three. Bernanke we don't know quite as well as the Shrub, but I suspect, from my admittedly limited viewing of him, that he is more bungler than liar, but that remains to be seen.

Truly, it's one thing to not be able to recognize that the light coming towards one from the end of the tunnel belongs to a freight train, but it's quite another to not recognize that what is barreling down on one is a locomotive even after it blares its thunderous horn. The latter epic mistake is akin to Bernanke and Bush's assessment of the U.S. economy. Gentleman, if I can use that appelation with one or both of you, WE ALREADY ARE IN RECESSION! The official numbers, massaged as they are to reveal as little of the ugly trend as possible, say as much. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once observed that, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." When one has a bead on things as they are, and the means to address them, even when matters are bleak, that pearl of wisdom is true. However, when one does not have the measure of things as they are, or refuses to acknowledge what is plain, then one has much to fear beyond fear itself. Today's headline at the link below informs us that mind numbing fear, as Roosevelt referred to it, is anything but our only worry going forward.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080228/bush_bernanke.html