Over Two and Half Million Jobs Lost

550,000 jobs lost in December.

584,000 jobs lost in November.

432,000 jobs lost in October.

2.6 million jobs lost since last year.

While the economy continues to implode, and crooked financiers run off with billion-dollar government bailouts, our local dignitaries and Navy brass prepare for the “special commissioning” of the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush.  Of course, the carrier isn’t finished yet, and it hasn’t undergone required sea trials. The Navy hasn’t even “taken delivery” of the ship yet, but the Bush administration can’t let such minor details get in the way of declaring “Mission Accomplished.”

In a way, the phony U.S.S. George H.W. Bush ceremony is a very fitting symbol of the last eight years — the rush to declare victory prematurely, the triumph of form over substance, the refusal to do the hard work of governing in lieu of media manipulation, the sad and sometimes ugly truth underlying all that patriotic pomp and circumstance.