Job Growth Column Comes Too Late

Regarding “Pace of Job Growth Was Never in Bush’s Hands” (James Flanigan, Nov. 7):

The cows, horses and chickens, and all of the other barnyard animals, have long since left the barn, and James Flanigan is now feebly telling us to close the barn door.

Writing about job growth on Nov. 7, well after the subject was an important issue, is a spineless way to broach this subject without causing controversy or, God forbid, actually making a positive point about President Bush in the Los Angeles Times.

I didn’t see any articles in The Times before the election stating these job growth facts and realities. I did see articles stating that job growth was an issue of each debate and for public fodder. Where were you before all the barn animals left? Way to stay ahead of the curve.

Considering the median level of intelligence and knowledge of American voters, wouldn’t you think it better to tell the truth before they cast their ballots?

Gary Marquis

Irvine

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Why didn’t you do a piece before the election taking the position that Bush and presidents in general have limited and only tangential control of the economy and jobs, jobs, jobs?

Any halfway-bright economist knows it.

Don Moery

San Clemente

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Flanigan makes a wild leap beyond the facts in speculating that the public wisely “recognized that today’s labor market was being influenced by a set of forces far beyond the control of any one man.”

Economists strongly disagree with Flanigan’s notion that government policies could not help our record job losses under this administration. So how likely is it that the average voter has stumbled on the correct answer?

Flanigan fails to report on this debate, citing only industry analysts and the Brookings Institution. Rather than front-page business news, his column should have been in the Op-Ed section.

More than 60% of the public believes that weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein helped plan 9/11 -- which none of the government-commissioned studies have found to be the case.

Flanigan should explain how this public is so astute about economics when it fails to be “reality-based” in its other assessments.

Burton Goldstein

Santa Monica