Many were shocked by yesterday's announcement that the US economy actually grew in the 1st quarter of 2008.  Almost all econonmic "experts" had predicted a negative number which would point to a recession.  Of course, they were wrong.

As a reminder, a recession is a negative growth in GDP for TWO consecutive quarters. 

From a historical perspective, it's interesting to note that the "anemic growth rate" that the main stream media used to describe yesterday's number is only slightly lower than the 2nd quarter of 1995 when the GDP grew by .7%. 

I don't recall any handwringing about a recession then.   Oh that's right!  When a Democrat is in the White House, economic numbers are judged a completely different way.