Posted 9:17 AM by Robert

Pathetic ... And Bound To Lose XXII: Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

The Man Without Qualities has for a while been suspecting that the official employment numbers have been understating actual employment - and the Department of Labor figures just released tend to bear that suspicion out:

The U.S. Labor Department said non-farm payrolls increased 308,000 in March, well above expectations of 122,000. In addition, February's payroll growth was raised to 46,000 and January's to 159,000 from 21,000 and 97,000, respectively.

Well, 308,000 new payroll jobs is a pretty nice number for a Presidential re-election effort. If he got some advanced signals - and there were plenty to go around, starting with Mr. Snow's "outsourcing is good for you" comments - it would be no wonder that John Kerry went in for surgery. What's the "strategy" going to be now that demagoging outsourcing and job creation is kaput? Well, there's the price of gas. I wonder if Senator Kerry regrets all of his hike-the-gas-tax or kill-the-car votes and comments just now? So far, it doesn't look like the Senator has a clue of what to do next.

As an inconsequential aside, since the January and February numbers were seriously revised, will that mean Herr Doktorprofessor Paul Von Krugman will be seriously revising his "jobs" columns that were essentially nothing more than rehashes of some employment statistics selected by him? Probably not. Herr Doktorprofessor won't have time for any revisions as he dashes off new columns predicting the collapse of the economy and the federal budget because of rising interest rates and inflation.

Yes, we can look forward to something like Herr Doktorprofessor's version of the old Yogi Berraism: "Nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded." I again feel for the cat.

UPDATE: As usual, Steve Antler beats out Herr Doktorprofessor. The big question in the Roosevelt/Princeton game is getting to be whether Roosevelt is going to be chastised for running up the score.

FURTHER UPDATE: Here are some easy ones: What happens now to those all-important poll questions of the form "do you think the nation is on the right track or wrong track?" And what happens in "battlefield" states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin that are already trending towards Bush?

But here's a real tough one: Who said "I didn't really say everything I said" and "I wish I had an answer to that, because I'm tired of answering that question."

Was it John Kerry? Or Yogi Berra?

Now the reader should think long and hard. This is an important question for the Senator as he and his team try to come up with his new strategy! Yes, the game is only half over! Senator Kerry should collect himself and learn from the master: "You give 100 percent in the first half of the game, and if that isn't enough in the second half you give what's left;" and, of course, "You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours."