MIDDAY BLOG ROUNDUP

by Walter Alarkon - 04/04/08 12:52 PM ET

A Friday full of bad economic news — 80,000 jobs lost last month, 81 percent of Americans believe the country is on wrong track — has conservative and liberal bloggers fencing over who deserves the blame.

The Foundry, the Heritage Foundation’s blog, argues that the “elite media” is wrong to point fingers at Wall Street and blame a lack of government control for the current economic woes. Politicians and even community activists had called for the easing of lending terms on mortgages, the blog notes.

Pushing back from the left, AMERICAblog’s Jacki Schechner writes that a 5.1 percent unemployment rate doesn’t bode well for President Bush’s legacy. And Kossack DemFromCT argues that the poll numbers all point to a rough road ahead for Republicans. After all, they have controlled the White House during the current downtown, the blogger notes.

All three presidential campaigns are taking fire. Matthew Yglesias finds Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) new ad “bizarre” for focusing on the time he turned in a prep school classmate. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air notes that a Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) adviser drafted a memo calling for an 80,000-troop force in Iraq at the same time Obama has called for a withdrawal. And Marc Ambinder writes up Mark Penn’s side work for Colombia in support of a free trade pact, something that Penn’s colleagues on the Clinton campaign aren’t too happy about.

McCain’s vice presidential pick continues to be a topic of speculation in conservative circles. RedState’s California Yankee notes that there’s no favorite among Republican voters, according to a new poll. Respondents’ two most preferred candidates, former primary rivals Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney, however, could be at each other again, writes Matt Lewis. The Townhall blogger suggests that social conservatives could be working to undermine Romney in order to improve Huckabee’s chances.