Postred by AzBlueMeanie:
The manufactured media story of the week was President Obama stating at his press conference this week the following:
We've created 4.3 million jobs over the past 27 months. Over 800,000 just this year alone. The private sector is doing fine. Where we're seeing problems is with state and local government, often with cuts initiated by governors or mayors who are not getting the kind of help they're accustomed to from the federal government.
All of the DC media villagers in the White House press corps knew exactly what President Obama meant: 27 consecutive months of private sector job growth coming out of the Bush Great Recession.
By way of comparison, as Paul Krugman has demonstrated, there has been a massive decline in public sector employment since the end of the stimulus bill funding due to "austerity" budget cuts by Tea-Publican controlled state legislatures across the country, sabotaging the economic recovery by adding to unemployment.
There is no dispute about theese facts. But Tea-Publicans cherry-picked the line "The private sector is doing fine," and began tweeting it to the DC media villagers. I believe it was Mrs. Greenspan (Andrea Mitchell) to whom I was listening admit after the press conference that the media all knew what President Obama meant but that they would all play along with this manufactured story, because the corporate media villagers always take their lead from the GOP talking points.
Here is the AP (All Propaganda) headline Obama gets grief for saying private sector 'fine'. While most newspapers across the country used this headline, our creative headline writer at the Arizona Daily Star decided to go with the Romney campaign talking points: Romney: Can Obama be this out of touch?
According to the AP (All Propaganda) reporters, Ken Thomas and Philip Elliot, "Obama's original six-word sentence, even if taken out of context, amounted to an unforced political error." And why is that? Because the media villagers want to focus on such distraction issues manufactured by the GOP rather than substance?
To their credit, the AP reporters did get this much right:
But while "doing fine" is in the eye of the beholder, Obama was correct that the job picture in the private sector is brighter than in the public sector.
Since the recession officially ended in June 2009, private companies have added 3.1 million jobs. Largely because of cuts at the state and local level, governments have slashed 601,000 jobs over the same period.
According to the government, corporate profits have risen 58 percent since mid-2009.
Even so, by historical standards, private job gains in the last three months have been weak.
Obama pressed Congress to enact parts of his jobs agenda, including proposals to help state governments rehire teachers, police officers and firefighters.
To their discredit, the AP reporters selectively quoted the Romney response to President Obama and entirely left out the critical part.
Romney, holding a campaign event in Council Bluffs, Iowa, said Obama's remark, made during a White House news conference, was "defining what it means to be detached and out of touch with the American people."
He said the comment "is going to go down in history as an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding."
Here is the critical part of Romney's comments they selectively failed to report. Per CNN's report of the Romney event:
Romney said of Obama, “he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more fireman, more policeman, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
So Mittens Romney does not believe that policemen, firemen and teachers are Americans (or "Amercians" for that matter), and he "likes to fire" you because you are "government workers" and he is all-in on GOP austerity budget cuts that are sabotaging the economic recovery. Now THAT'S the kind of information voters need to know, dontcha think?
As Greg Sargent reported, Mitt Romney: We don’t need more cops, firefighters or teachers - The Plum Line:
One of the components of the American Jobs Act that Obama continues to demand that Republicans pass would invest $35 billion in federal funds to keep cops, firefighters, and teachers on the job. Republicans, Romney included, oppose this plan. Central to their argument against this type of investment is to keep the focus on public sector workers as a class, arguing that they are bilking the taxpayer and are to blame for the economic plight of struggling Americans. As Romney recently put it: “We have 145,000 more government workers under this president. Let’s send them home and put you back to work.”
* * *
This time, however, Romney deserves points for honesty: He has forthrightly declared that the class of government workers holding back other Americans does include cops, firefighters and teachers. And in so doing, he has singlehandedly reframed the debate from one over despised government bureaucrats to one over whether we should hire more cops, firefighters and teachers to get the economy going. This is a debate the White House will be happy to have.
Or, to put it another way: #WedgeFail!
UPDATE: Greg Sargent on Sunday:
The Obama campaign is out with a Web video highlighting job loss resulting from cuts to state and local budgets — and contrasting Obama’s plan to send billions in aid to the states to rehire first responders and teachers with Mitt Romney’s claim Friday that we don’t need any more of them:
At Obama’s presser on Friday, he made one of his most extensive cases yet that austerity and more cuts to government will push us further into crisis, while Romney’s comments later in the day gave Obama’s campaign an opening to reframe this debate as one not about parasitic bureacrats but one specifically about cops, firefighters and teachers. More broadly, the argument is now fully engaged over the relationship between government job loss and the economic crisis.
UPDATE: Steve Benen anticipated the media and political world would pay less attention to Romney’s claim that we don’t need more cops or figherfighters than to Obama’s “doing fine” remark:
Here’s a radical idea I’ll just throw out there: maybe during the race for the White House, candidates and media professionals can spend a little time on this. I mean, honestly, isn’t this one of the more important positions Romney has taken all year? I’ll make this really easy: Dear Mr. Romney, please explain why America will be better off when more teachers, cops, and firefighters are unemployed.
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