AS ECONOMIC FORECASTERS cranked up their models at the end of last year, many pored over the printouts and decided that Robert Browning had it right when he wrote, “Never glad confident morning again.” The economy seemed in such bad shape that the Democrats looked forward to teaching another Bush that “it’s the economy, stupid.” The unemployment rate was 6 percent and rising; the president’s tax cuts threatened fiscal meltdown; the trade deficit was heading for a succession of records; the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board was warning of “corrosive deflation”; and the president had just fired his economic team.

Worse still, George W. Bush seemed to have little time for economic policy, distracted as he was by organizing the defense of the realm, and planning for the unseating of Saddam while simultaneously fighting a rearguard action against France and other enemies of America at the United Nations.