In case you missed it, the February jobs report on Friday contained some encouraging news. National Journal’s Michael Hirsh wrote that the BLS numbers gave President Obama “what he’s wanted for four years: an unemployment rate that’s below where he started as president, 7.7 percent.”
However, Hirsh was guarded in his optimism, also acknowledging that “things are not really as good as the numbers suggest, and they are all but certain to get worse.” The report itself quantifies how grim the reality is. While 236,000 Americans found jobs in February, 296,000 stopped looking. Once an unemployed person has run through 99 weeks of unemployment compensation, moreover, he no longer exists in the eyes of the Labor Department’s statisticians, and is thus no longer counted as unemployed.
But none of this prevented the administration’s mindless cheerleaders from popping corks. On Friday night, Chris Matthews asked on “Hardball” (video on this page):
When is President Obama going to get some credit, and this is like Rodney Dangerfield. When’s he going to get some credit for this amazing economy that’s coming back. It definitely is coming back, maybe not like gangbusters, but the unemployment rate really dropped again today, and there really are a quarter-million new jobs out there. And the stock market for the rich is going through the roof. When’s this guy going to get some respect? Republicans, when are they going to set a standard, ‘OK, if he gets to this number, we’ll love him.’ You ought to ask this question. Will they ever admit he’s doing a good job? [Emphasis added]
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