Turds, and the Polishing Thereof...

PISSED brought the following interesting twist to my attention yesterday. He sent a link to a story with a headline that doesn't exactly jibe with the story. Here's the headline:

Record gains for US poverty with elections looming

And here's the main thrust of the article:

WASHINGTON – The number of people in the U.S. who are in poverty is on track for a record increase on President Barack Obama's watch, with the ranks of working-age poor approaching 1960s levels that led to the national war on poverty.

Census figures for 2009 — the recession-ravaged first year of the Democrat's presidency — are to be released in the coming week, and demographers expect grim findings.

Now, maybe it's just me. I didn't go to a fancy journalism school or anything, but words mean things. "Record gains" is never used to indicate something bad; most often it's in relation to the stock market posting a strong surge or the consumer confidence index rising. Calling more people living below the poverty than in previous years a "gain" is a stretch by pretty much anyone's imagination.

But the story doesn't stop there:

It's unfortunate timing for Obama and his party just seven weeks before important elections when control of Congress is at stake. The anticipated poverty rate increase — from 13.2 percent to about 15 percent — would be another blow to Democrats struggling to persuade voters to keep them in power.

"Unfortunate timing"? Are the census figures released at different times of the year? I suspect the only thing "unfortunate" about the timing of this announcement was that they couldn't spike it before the November elections. And, of course, there's the obligatory swipe at George Bush:

Democrats almost certainly will argue that they shouldn't be blamed. They're likely to counter that the economic woes — and the poverty increase — began under President George W. Bush with the near-collapse of the financial industry in late 2008.

Yes, it's that dastardly George W. Bush again. Even though the Democrats had been in control of the House and the Senate for two years by the time the "near-collapse" occurred, it's Bush's fault. Even though folks like Barney Frank - now one of the biggest critics of mortgage lenders like Fannie Mae - were their staunchest champions at the time, it's George W. Bush's fault. One wonders if George W. Bush will be the next Snowball, responsible for souring milk, breaking eggs, and causing harvests to fail.

One thing's for certain, though - George W. Bush isn't going to be on the ballot in November, but many of these legislators are - we need to vote these SOBs the hell out.

That is all.