Obama's WAG

In the introductory speech at last week's prime-time press conference, Obama made this comment: "We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs...." (See Full Text Of News Conference)

To the many who watched that news conference, this number appeared to go right over their heads and simply taken as fact. But to people of reason, that number is totally ridiculous!

For the last 13 weeks or 90 days, this country has consistently seen 600,000 or more workers "per week" file for unemployment insurance because they've lost their jobs. For Obama to claim 150,000 jobs being saved or created (Apparently, he's not sure which!) is just plain folly. Based on a 5-day work week, the claims offices around this country are averaging more than 130,000 claims-per-day. So, in essence, Obama's claim that he helped reduce unemployment by 150k is to say that he has affected a little more than 1 day's worth of unemployment claims in the last 3 months! That's sort of like saying: "The good news is that we've saved or created 2500 jobs per workday in the last 90 days. The bad news is that, at the same time, we lost 140,000 jobs per workday in the process!"

But the 600,000 plus jobs being lost per week is just part of the unemployment story. That number is "only" made up of those who are eligible for unemployment. Recently hired employees who have lost there jobs and haven't worked long enough to qualify for unemployment compensation are not in that number. Independent contractors without employees and who are not getting any work are not included either, because they are not eligible for any comp. Further, people who have completely exhausted their unemployment compensation rights and who have still not found a job are not in that number.

Obama knows he can't quantify that number of 150,000 jobs. It seems that he and team Obama are just "Wagging" it!

When I was in high school and in college, we used to have an acronym "WAG" when talking about answering questions on a test that you had no idea as to what the answer was. WAG stood for "Wild Ass Guess" and it sometimes helped those get a passing grade on a true/false or multiple choice test for those who didn't quite study hard enough. To me, Obama was pulling a WAG at that new conference.

For the most part, I have been critical of the Associated Press for turning a "blind eye" towards the Democrats when it came to investigative journalism; and, especially towards Barack Obama. This week, however, I have to give them kudos for their return to their old days of professional journalism with this piece: "FACT CHECK: Obama's job, deficit claims are iffy". If I have one criticism, the article isn't quite as hard hitting as it could be. But, it's nice to see that others, besides me, seem to think that Obama is playing fast and loose with the facts.