Fudging the economy

WASHINGTON NORMALLY, consumers of information about the economy pay scant heed to Bush administration officials. In the financial and policy worlds, they have a deserved reputation for ideological blinders, tight political scripts, and poor persuasive skills.

When the jittery country got two tough jolts of disturbing information about the now officially anemic recovery, however, this absence of leadership ability tended to make an upsetting situation worse. The continued inability of President Bush's team to communicate, an inability that begins at the top, is going to make consumers and not just investors even more concerned than the facts would seem to require they be.

The reports, first that the recovery effectively stalled in the second quarter and second that an expected spurt in the number of private sector jobs failed to materialize last month, were each made more disturbing by the atrocious ''analysis'' with which top officials greeted their publication.

With the news that employment gains essentially disappeared during July, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao said the country should take heart from the fact that the unemployment rate ''was essentially unchanged'' and that the number of unemployed Americans who have been out of work for at least 15 weeks declined after more than a year of increases during the recession.

Her statement was absurd, and it will only heighten suspicions that conditions must be serious if Bush advisers go to such silly lengths to fudge the obvious.