Media Can't Say Who's Right on Jobs Creation

Check this out:

Pessimist vs. Optimist on Cable Only: Bush-Cheney '04 announced the release of a new ad Friday. Called "Pessimism," the ad will be shown on national cable channels. According to the accompanying press release, "The new ad highlights President Bush's leadership in strengthening the economy, including 1.4 million new jobs added since August, in contrast to John Kerry's pessimism about America's growing economy." In a press release from early May, Kerry said that "America is still in the worst job recovery since the Great Depression, with 2.2 million private-sector jobs lost in the Bush presidency," one of the claims that the new Bush ad aims to refute.

So: Who's right, here? The media just can't say. Bush says one thing, Kerry says another. Your head could explode from trying to analyze the divergent claims. It's far too difficult to figure out whose numbers are accurate.

Except it's not.

We have the numbers. Kerry is wrong. Flat-wrong.

Anyone think that if Bush were making claims contrary to established fact the media would just report his false claims, and Kerry's correct claims, as an unresolvable dispute?

The media pounded on Bush for making an unlikely prediction about 2.6 million jobs created by the end of 2004. (That prediction is actually now "likely," but let's leave that aside.)

So, Bush gets pounded for making predictions (which turn out to be much more likely than at first thought), but Kerry is permitted by the media to make false assertions regarding currently established facts without challenge.

Oh, that liberal bias, as the man says.