"President Bush, in a marked shift from his usual upbeat economic assessments, conceded here on Monday that the nation faces 'economic challenges'..."

Reports the NYT.

“We cannot take growth for granted,” Mr. Bush said in a speech to a group of business leaders in which he acknowledged that “recent economic indicators have become increasingly mixed.”

I've become so skeptical of all things political that my first thought was that he's trying to help someone in the primaries (Romney?) — or hurt someone (Huckabee?) — by pushing economic issues into the foreground.