President Obama’s opponents have spent more than three years blaming him for the economic mess the Bush administration left behind, but an ad from Karl Rove’s American Crossroads is particularly disingenuous. Taking aim at the Obama campaign’s slogan “Forward,” Crossroads cherry-picks several statistics to claim the country has moved “backward” under the president. However, the economic picture they paint only reflects the magnitude of the recession that started in late 2007, almost a year before Obama was elected. In addition to whitewashing the dismal Bush record, Crossroads conveniently ignores significant evidence of progress, such as the 4.5 million private-sector jobs added over 29 consecutive months of growth.

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