The bullshit rhetoric spewed by the Washington Post, never ceases to amaze me. Their latest is the first installment of a four part anti-Bush hit piece that the post claims will look at "the personal and political impact that the issues at the center of this presidential campaign are having in four battleground states". The first issue they crack is the economy, and the setting is the battleground state of Ohio.

The article has a dubious tag-line on the main page that says "many feel let down by Bush on the economy". Right away the anti-Bush tone is clear. The article itself is titled, "Wanted: A Candidate to Defend Financial Future and Way of Life". Just what way of life are they talking about? Well according to the Post's first paragraph, it's the uneducated way of life.

There was a time when people without college degrees could earn a good living in the big cities of Cleveland and Cincinnati, as well as in the small towns along the Ohio River near the West Virginia line. People raised their families in towns like McConnelsville and Clarington, working on farms or in steel or aluminum factories, and others moved here in search of a decent living and a quiet life.

Those days of contentment have faded over the last two decades and have been replaced by angst over what the future holds as the small towns here follow the big cities through the difficult transition into the new high-tech economy.

Isn't it a shame that the computer age is upon us and most jobs now demand someone who is tech savvy. If only we had a candidate that could defend the old, untechnical, way of life. But wait, there's more.

To the south of Cleveland is Akron, the former rubber capital of the world. It suffered hard times for decades as behemoths like Goodyear and Firestone, among others, shipped jobs to other countries. Now the area crackles with innovation as a center of polymer technology.

Remember the good old days of rubber tires. Now everything is high tech polymer compounds. If only we had a candidate who would defend wagon wheels and hard rubber tires. But don't take their word for it, take a look at the poll numbers.

Seventy-one percent of Republicans predict "good times" for the nation's businesses over the year, compared to 36 percent of Democrats who feel that way. The bad news for Bush is that those who consider themselves independents are more likely to side with Democrats than Republicans on their outlook on the economy right now, with only 34 percent predicting good business conditions for the next 12 months.

The widespread disapproval of the president's handling of the economy has helped drag down his overall approval rating.

The poll put the president's approval rating at 46 percent, one of the lowest of any president in the past few decades. (President Clinton dipped to 45 percent in 1994, and Ronald Reagan was at 46 percent in 1982. Both were reelected, but Bush's low numbers come much further along in his first term.)

Did you hear that? Forty-six percent is one of the lowest of any president in the past few decades. Well, lets look at that again.

Excluding Carter and going back 24 years to 1980, there have been exactly four Presidents. (Reagan, Bush, Clinton, and Bush). Of these, the Post gives numbers for everyone but Bush 41. George W. Bush is tied with Reagan at 46%, and a point higher than Clinton's 45%. Since G.H.W. Bush's numbers weren't given is it safe to assume they were higher? If we do, than out of 4 presidents in the past 24 years, "W" appears to be second from the top. The order (best to worst) would be Bush 41, Reagan and Bush 43 tied for second, and then Clinton. Maybe I'm reading it wrong but that seems more like one of the highest than "one of the lowest". But, I digress.

Already, both the Kerry and Bush campaigns are pouring money and resources into advertising and organizing here, and both have made major campaign appearances in the state.

Perhaps all those unemployed, uneducated, wagon wheel makers should go into advertising. It seems to be booming.

Ohio's overall unemployment rate mirrored the national average of 5.7 percent in March, the last month for which numbers are currently available. Some areas of the state are doing exceedingly well, and others are faring poorly, with unemployment rates hovering at more than double or triple the national average.

Talk about accentuating the negative! It doesn't take a math major to figure out that if a state is averaging 5.7%, there can't be too many communities with 17% unemployment.

There are rural areas doing well and others doing poorly.

Who knew?

There are urban areas performing competitively in the new economy, others faltering.

Damn, these guys don't miss anything.

And some suburban areas are doing better than others.

So, to recap, some places are doing well, some aren't.

The Post goes on to more in depth analysis of two Ohio counties. One is a blue collar county that relies mostly on manufacturing. (Usually the last industry to rebound economically.)

The major employer in the southern part of the county is Ormet Aluminum, which recently announced layoffs of 300 employees in Monroe County. The company blamed the "current significant imbalance between the market prices of aluminum and alumina" -- a raw material used to make aluminum -- as the reason for the action, according to a press release. The workers, who are currently in contract negotiations with the company, blame federal legislation that has liberalized trade with China.

China, they argue, has driven up the price of alumina by purchasing it in large quantities on the open market. They accuse China of then using cheap labor to produce massive quantities of aluminum, which it dumps back in the United States at prices too low for American firms to compete against.

So the employer is blaming market forces. They say that consumers want cheap aluminum products, but the raw materials to make aluminum are too expensive to justify production with expensive American labor. Ormet could continue to process aluminum, but the end product would be too expensive and hard to sell on the free market.

On the other hand, the employees are blaming free trade. Those damned Chinese are taking advantage of cheap labor and driving American producers out of business. They are dumping cheap aluminum on the U.S. market and forcing Ohio laborers out of work.

So, what's the solution? Well, since the price of manufactured aluminum only supports a meager third world wage, you could take the Libertarian approach and go find another job outside of aluminum production. Since producing aluminum isn't paying very well any more, perhaps it's time to find a new line of work. Then again maybe it's easier to take the Democrat approach. That's the approach where rather than take personal responsibility for having unmarketable skills, you use the police power of the government to force people to spend more money for the fruits of your labors. In this case, they want the federal government to force American consumers to buy more expensive aluminum.

"People have built their lives here. But what are their options? Go work at Wheeling-Pitt Steel (in nearby West Virginia)," which just emerged from bankruptcy in August and is still bleeding money?, [Union official Ron] Blatt asked. "There are no jobs to go to in this area. The only thing you can do is go somewhere else."

That's exactly what you do. Or you could, oh I don't know, maybe try learning a different trade.

Both Blatt and Hartshorn, who has three kids, said they've come to accept the fact that their own children almost certainly will not return home after attending college.

Who do they blame for all of this? President Bush and his party.

Why would you want them to? My parents were sad to see me move away, but they could hardly blame me for seeking more lucrative opportunities in a higher rent town. They surely didn't blame the President.

The next county they look at is Morgan County, about 30 minutes west of Monroe.

Most people here wouldn't think of voting for a Democrat. Bush beat Gore 58 to 38 percent here in 2000.

But unemployment is pushing 20 percent (18.6 percent as of March, according to the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services), the highest rate in the state. That is partly the result of three major employers -- Malta Wood Windows Inc., Gould Electronics Inc. and Taylor Woodworks -- closing their doors in recent years, leaving thousands of people unemployed and looking for work. [...]

Among them is Bonnie Miller, who worked at Malta Wood Windows for 15 years, just as her parents did before her. Miller lost her job along with about 250 other people after the owners shut down the plant in the spring of 2001 in the wake of an employee strike.

So the employees went on strike in the middle of the recession and forced the closure of the plant. The sounds pretty much self inflicted to me. But Miller has apparently been looking for work for 3 years now, and not finding it. And her solution is to blame the man who took office right around the time she was walking the picket line and refusing to work. Excuse me if my heart doesn't bleed for her.

In recent years, Malta had struggled to compete against cheaper, mass-produced window makers -- many of them foreign-based -- and finally ceased to be viable.

Since then, Miller has helped support her family, which also lost its health insurance when she lost her job, by cleaning rooms at a nearby hotel part time and cutting grass.

That's not enough. She needs to take the initiative to find another career, not just part time and seasonal work to make ends almost meet. Contrast what Miller has done to what other ex-Malta employees have done.

Five former Malta employees were able to reopen the Malta plant after they raised about $140,000 and took out a line of credit. The improvement corporation also helped them secure a $220,000 grant from the Southern Ohio Agricultural & Community Development Foundation.

The five owners are also the plant's only workers.

Now, that's initiative. One of the employees David Shaner is now the CEO of the new company. And guess who he's voting for.

And as difficult as the circumstances of Malta's closing were, he said he doesn't necessarily blame the government or Washington politicians for what happens in a competitive, free-market system.

Bingo! Give that man a prize. He realizes that it is not up to the government to create jobs. It's up to people to tailor their skill set and capabilities into something that someone wants to buy. But when no one wants to buy what some people are selling, Liberals would rather force them to.