Is it Safe to Report Good Economic News Yet?

The media has been quite hostile to the economy for several years now. As posted here many times, even good news was always balanced by bad news or some mitigating commentary. From my perspective it seems that the hostile winds abruptly slowed right after the November elections. AFP is now reporting on "surprising" good economic news. According to the story:

Economists are hastily upgrading their forecasts for the US economy after a series of surprisingly strong reports suggesting the so-called "soft landing" may be over and growth is accelerating.

Over the past week, surprises have come in stronger-than-expected reports on US job creation, the trade balance and retail sales -- all key contributors to economic activity.

The eye rolling quote states:

"After slowing in November, the economy seems to have regained its stride," Harris said.

The question is how long before the media begins attributing an improved economy to the Democrat win in November? This would be the reverse of 2001 when the media sat on bad economic news during the 2000 campaign. Bush "stole" the election and suddenly we were in a recession. Suddenly it was Bush's recession. So how soon before this is the Dem's economic upturn? If they could only get the minimum wage raised and some taxes hiked before more good news comes in, they could link the growth to these initiatives. (You read it here first).

Of course the AFP report speculates on the growth in areas other than Bush's economic policies:

But some analysts say the strong data may be distorted by mild weather and drops in energy costs.

So are they going to link global warming to an improved economy? No that is stretching it a bit. On the energy costs, the analysts may have swerved onto something. I don't recall if I ever posted on it, but I have stated in my personal discussions that the lower gas prices would have the same effect on the economy as a tax cut. This is the same effect that Bush's tax cuts had at bringing an economy hammered by recession and the effects of 9/11 back from the brink. Since the economy was in good health back in the fall, the gas prices after taking full effect will have a strong boosting of the economy.

It must be freeing to the media to be able to simply report on good economic news knowing there is now an alternative to giving Bush credit for it.