No Apology from President Bush for Economic Downturn

Many media outlets reported on an interview that ABC News conducted with President Bush with the lead that the president apologized for the bad economy. That would be an attractive headline, if it were true. From the interview transcript, it is clear that President Bush was not taking responsibility for current economic conditions, and rightly so.

Bush sat down with Charlie Gibson for a retrospective look at his presidency. Gibson asked the president about the global economic crisis and the Administration's response to it. The president stated that his administration had responded swiftly and correctly. Then, he offered his thoughts on the origins of the crisis, and where blame will eventually be placed for the meltdown in financial markets.

"I'm sorry it's happening, of course. Obviously I don't like the idea of people losing jobs, or being worried about their 401(k)s. On the other hand, the American people got to know that we will safeguard the system. I mean, we're in. And if we need to be in more, we will.

You know, I'm the president during this period of time, but I think when the history of this period is written, people will realize a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in president. And when people review the history of this administration, people will say that this administration tried hard to get a regulator. And there will be a lot of analysis of why that didn't happen. I suspect people will find a lot of it didn't happen for pure political reasons."

Some reports on the president's comments focused on the first part of his remarks and omitted the second. President Bush did not apologize for the economic downturn. On the contrary, the president clearly and correctly laid blame for the economic crisis at the feet of Democrats, both in the prior administration and Congress. That story, however, did not make it through the media filter.

President Bush will leave office as one of the nation's most unpopular presidents. So the temptation to blame him for all of the nation's woes is strong both for the press and for the incoming administration. But the Obama Administration will at least have a political motivation for doing so. The press is not supposed to be political. The least the press can do is accurately report the president's comments and their context while he is still in office. The day is coming, sooner than the media would like, that it will not be able to blame President Bush for everything. Soon it will be President Obama's turn to come in for criticism. It is safe to say that when that day comes, the press will suddenly get much more accurate in its reporting of his remarks.