WASHINGTON

SO HOW DID WE GET to this point? Job losses in the hundreds of thousands every month, almost weekly bank failures, and 401(k)s at half their value from a year and a half ago. The media treat the question as a mystery that can be solved through scrutiny of the Obama administration’s actions starting on Jan. 20, 2009 — an absurd approach on its face.

Their erasure of the Bush administration and its policies in their coverage of the economy has been so pervasive that the other week, amid round-the-clock attention to the AIG bonus scandal, there was virtually no mention of the fact that it was the Bush administration and the Democratic-led Congress that last fall approved billions of dollars in aid to AIG without requiring the company to nullify its bonus contracts

The recent coverage of the AIG scandal exemplifies the media’s amnesia toward the Bush administration. Notwithstanding its critical role in the process by which AIG received its bailout money and AIG employees received their bonuses, the media advanced the false accusation that Democrats created the bonuses in the stimulus bill that Congress passed and President Obama signed in February. Fox News took its erasure of the Bush Treasury Department to an even greater extreme, playing down a scoop by its sister news organization Fox Business Network, which obtained e-mails from early November showing Bush Treasury Department officials grappling with the AIG bonus issue.

In a report on FBN’s finding, Fox News host Jon Scott and correspondent Brian Wilson glossed over the significance of their colleagues’ discovery: The e-mails show that the Bush Treasury Department knew about the bonus contracts and agreed later that month to billions in AIG money without requiring the company to revoke them.

Coverage of the AIG bonuses offers a dramatic demonstration of the erasure of the Bush administration from reporting on economic issues. The media have simply steered clear of any consideration of the effects of the prior administration’s tax cuts for the wealthy, its deficit spending, and its aggressively hands-off approach toward the market and financial institutions.

References to an “Obama bear market” — a clear double standard given the absence of references to a “Bush bear market” last year — are rarely accompanied by an analysis of factors arising during the last administration that continue to affect the market today. A Bloomberg article about the loss of household net worth in 2008 did not even mention the president at the time, and a CNN correspondent falsely suggested that this drop happened in part during the Obama administration.

Stories and television commentary on soaring foreclosure rates almost invariably leave out President Bush’s homeownership agenda and his “zero down payment” homeownership initiative. Through tax cuts and massive borrowing, the Bush administration presided over the creation of an enormous deficit that now presents a major drag on the enactment of policies to turn around the economy.

As economist Dean Baker pointed out, most of the 2009 deficit is attributable to Bush-era policies, according to projections from the Congressional Budget Office. But even in stories that specifically address the budget deficit, the Bush administration is often absent.

Not only have the media often erased the Bush administration from their coverage, they have chided President Obama for referring to the prior administration. In a March 14 article, The Washington Post characterized his assertions that he had inherited the current economic situation as “recriminations.” Rather than evaluating the accuracy of Obama’s claims, staff writer Scott Wilson focused on what he called Obama’s “frequent and acid reminders” as a part of Obama’s strategy of “partisan defense.”

Regardless of one’s assessment of the Obama administration’s handling of the economy so far — and the administration has its share of critics from across the ideological spectrum — to erase the Bush administration from the picture is to deny the public and history a real understanding of how the country got to its perilous economic position. The consequences of that denial could be catastrophic — an absence of public support for genuine solutions and, worse, the fomenting of public demand for the reinstitution or expansion of the deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy that many economists say led to the recession in which the country now finds itself.

The Obama administration inherited a massive deficit, high and rising unemployment, a massive bailout-in-progress of the major financial institutions, and a high rate of mortgage foreclosures. The current economic and financial crises are not random acts of nature, unpredictable and unpreventable, but are consequences, at least in part, of policy decisions made during the previous administration.

George W. Bush was president for eight years and did not leave office until Jan. 20, 2009. Policies carried out during his tenure had lasting consequences. Press coverage should always reflect this reality.

Marcia Kuntz, a lawyer, is editor in chief for Media Matters for America. She was a legislative counsel to Rep. Barney Frank (D.-Mass.) and minority counsel for the housing subcommittee of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services.