Cheerleading for Obama ... "Unexpectedly" (Notice how often that word turns up?)

If you have been paying attention, you would have noticed the word "unexpectedly" recurring on economic news ever since Obama's election.

Michael Barone:

Unexpectedly!
As megablogger Glenn Reynolds, aka Instapundit, has noted with amusement, the word "unexpectedly" or variants thereon keep cropping up in mainstream media stories about the economy.


"New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed," reported CNBC.com May 25.


"Personal consumption fell," Business Insider reported the same day, "when it was expected to rise."


"Durable goods declined 3.6 percent last month," Reuters reported May 25, "worse than economists' expectations."


"Previously owned home sales unexpectedly fall," headlined Bloomberg News May 19.


"U.S. home construction fell unexpectedly in April," wrote the Wall Street Journal May 18.


Those examples are all from the last two weeks. Reynolds has been linking to similar items since October 2009.

Why?

"How many times in a row can something happen unexpectedly before the experts start to, you know, expect it? At some point, shouldn't they be required to state the foundation for their expectations?"

One answer is that many in the mainstream media have been cheerleading for Barack Obama. They and he both naturally hope for a strong economic recovery. After all, Obama can't keep blaming the economic doldrums on George W. Bush forever.

I'm confident that any comparison of economic coverage in the Bush years and the coverage now would show far fewer variants of the word "unexpectedly" in stories suggesting economic doldrums.