Fox Nation Fabrication: Obama Did Not Call 8.5 Percent Unemployment Rate "A Success"

[NNN0LHI]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201201080001

January 08, 2012 2:46 pm ET by Zachary Pleat

Fox Nation is distorting comments President Obama made about the economy to suggest that he called an 8.5 percent unemployment a "success." In fact, Obama made clear in his comments that he believes "we have a lot more work to do" to continue improving the economy.

On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that employment rose by 200,000 jobs in December and that the unemployment rate "continued to trend down" to 8.5 percent. In comments later that day, President Obama said: "we're making progress. We're moving in the right direction."

Indeed, the BLS reported that the unemployment rate has dropped 0.6 percentage points since August and employment in the private sector increased by 1.9 million jobs in 2011, marking the strongest employment growth in the private sector since 2005.

Fox Nation is treating Obama's comments as some type of victory lap, suggesting that he called the 8.5 percent unemployment rate a "success":

Obama did no such thing.

[hootinholler]

1. Well, yeah they would do that

Have they reported on the new dry water technology yet?

[NNN0LHI]

2. They do it because it works on folks who do their critical thinking from below the waist

Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.



Don

[Scuba]

3. Fox lies? Who knew?

[karynnj]

4. This is Fox News again trying to create CW - and it needs to be fought

Since 2009, the Republicans created a fiction that Obama promised that the unemployment rate would not exceed 8%. This has been repeated for 2 years ago and EVERY Republican talking head spoke of it. Now it is stated as fact by people like Mitt Romney. The number came from a budget estimate that was done while the Obama administration was preparing to take office and used data only through some point in either October or November - the most recent available. It did not foresee that things rapidly worsened. Obama never promised that unemployment would not exceed 8%

The bikini chart has been linked to here very often and you can see that when Obama came in we were hemorrhaging jobs. You can see from the graph that the stimulus had a major beneficial impact. The rate of job loss lessened immediately - but there still was job loss - so unemployment continued to increase. When the Republicans first started this, Biden and others responded and tried to explain that the projections did not include more recent data that would have shown it was much worse than expected - and what was expected was pretty bad. These pushbacks were treated as gaffes and excuses and the main narrative that Obama promised was continued.

I suspect that that fiction is connected to this new one. President Obama is completely right to speak of the economy heading in the right direction. It is - though not at the speed anyone wants. There is NO President who, in the same situation, would not have wanted to call attention to things improving - especially as improvement leads to more confidence which leads to more spending which leads to better results - which leads to expansion which leads to more jobs.

Fox, on the other hand, would prefer that no one see any improvement - helping the Republicans, who are doing all they can to stymie any pro-growth policy. I assume that the intent of the right with this lie of calling it a victory lap, when Obama has taken pains to always say that things are not where we need them to be, is an attempt to try to either get the Obama team NOT to speak of these numbers or to try to extract a political cost for seeming to declare "mission accomplished" - though I never saw Obama standing before a banner saying that!

[Whisp]

5. there are people here that believe Fox

apparently.
saying the same shit that Obama was happy and cheery and high fiveing a win.