Ferrablog

Last year, President Bush visited Canton, Ohio and gave a speech about how his economic plan was going to work and that manufacturing would be on the upswing. The site of that speech and his example of how great things were going? A manufacturing plant of the Timken Co., a steel company and an Ohio institution. Last month, Timken announced the Canton plant was being closed and 1300 jobs would be lost.

D'oh!

Here's a good Howard Fineman piece on this story.

And with Ohio being a key swing state and all, Bush was back a couple of weeks ago in Youngstown to tout another of his pet causes: medical malpractice "reform". Bob Herbert of the NY Times picks it up from here:

As he often does, the president called for reforms to make it more difficult for patients to seek compensation and to restrict the amount of damages that could be paid to those who prove they have been harmed.

To bolster his argument Mr. Bush introduced a local doctor, Compton Girdharry, to an audience at Youngstown State University. Dr. Girdharry, an obstetrician/gynecologist, said he had been driven from a practice of 21 years by the high cost of malpractice insurance.

The president praised Dr. Girdharry and thanked him for his "compassion."

If Mr. Bush was looking for an example of a doctor who was victimized by frivolous lawsuits, Dr. Girdharry was not a great choice. Since the early 1990's, he has settled lawsuits and agreed to the payment of damages in a number of malpractice cases in which patients suffered horrible injuries.

After these facts were brought to light, what did the White House have to say?

"Had this doctor provided that information," the spokesman said, "he would not have been at that event."

Double D'oh!