-By Warner Todd Huston
From the “figures lie, but liars figure” department we find that left-leaning cable newser MSNBC reported that the main reason Obama’s job stats are tumbling and unemployment is so high is because of the harsh tornado season and other natural disasters we have been experiencing over the first half of 2011. Yet, hypocritically, if we take a peak back to the unemployment rates reported by MSNBC in 2004, during Bush’s era, his jump in hiring was called false because of — you guessed it — hurricanes and other natural disasters.
That’s right, folks, MSNBC is using natural disasters to explain away Obama’s high unemployment rates when they used the very same excuse, natural disasters, to say that Bush’s rise in employment was false.
Talk about tailoring the “news” to fit the ideological objective that MSNBC wants to push, eh?
Rusty Weiss has a lot of details from Monday, but I want to focus on two examples.
On Monday, MSNBC contributor Eve Tahmincioglu lamented that, “Disasters wipe out jobs along with lives .” In her piece, Tahmincioglu blamed job loss directly on the tornadoes and floods that have bedeviled the central US.
The hardest-hit states already are seeing claims pour in for unemployment benefits. Since a deadly wave of tornadoes swept through Tuscaloosa, Ala., and other Southeast towns in late April, more than 6,000 people have applied for disaster-related jobless benefits, said Tom Surtees, director of the Alabama Department of Industrial Relations. Typically about 24,000 people file for jobless benefits each month in the state, where the jobless rate is 9.3 percent, a bit above the national average.
Might make sense, of course. If your towns have been wiped out by natural disasters, well, it might stand to reason that jobs would be wiped out, too. This might help explain the sad jobs picture during this, the Obama administration. MSNBC would love if it were that simple, love to have something other than Obama to blame for the high unemployment figures, certainly.
But, wait. Back in 2004 when Bush saw jobs being created “unexpectedly” MSNBC scoffed that it was anything that Bush was doing right. So what did these lefty “news” folks blame on the false high that explained, in their opinion, the Bush hiring jump? Why, what else but natural disasters?
After reporting that the 2004 job stats had increased “at the fastest pace in seven months,” the big brains at MSNBC explained that it was just a false high.
Some analysts were skeptical about the latest surge of hiring, pointing out that much of the unusually large jump in October stemmed from cleanup and rebuilding in Florida and other states that were ravaged by four hurricanes in August and September, the Labor Department said.
This is a plain example of a slanted media establishment tailoring the news to fit a previously determined ideological conclusion. Natural disasters hurt jobs when Obama is bleeding jobs like a sieve, but when Bush was gaining jobs it was false because of the same sort of natural disasters.
How can they have it both ways? Only when they want to save Obama’s bacon.
What could be more plain?
Check out Rusty’s post for even more examples.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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