For the GOP, surprisingly strong job report "Not good enough"

PJ: I had written earlier today that the unexpected positive jobs report would likely be greeted with criticsm by the GOP and that anything positive they had to say would be about credit they were due (http://politico-junkie.blogspot.com/2012/02/uk-us-jobless-rate-falls-to-83-lowest.html). After posting my thoughts, I suspected that I would be proven wrong. After all, how could anyone in the US look at the 5th straight month of improving employment as a negative? How could anyone, right or left, not acknowledge that the higher than expected job numbers was anything but positive? I knew that I was being cynical suggesting that the GOP would spin the progress in the US economy as a negative. And now I'm sorry to say that I was right.

For the other side of the coin, take a look at this post by Andrew Sullivan http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/02/83-reax-that-sound-you-hear-is-champagne-corks-in-the-west-wing.html

And for a balanced take on the political consequences and spin from both camps, take a look at CNN's report: http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/03/politics/obama-gop-jobs/index.html

Politico

John Boehner: Jobs report not good enough

President Barack Obama has no shortage of advisers, but he got some unsolicited advice from an unlikely source on Friday: Speaker John Boehner.

Republicans insisted at a news conference that the 8.3 percent unemployment rate is still too high — and the Ohio Republican offered Obama a pointer on how to win another term.

“If the president really wants to get the economy moving again, really wants to improve his own chances for reelection, maybe he’ll pick up the phone and call Senator [Harry] Reid and ask Senate Democrats to get off their rear ends,” Boehner said, urging the passage of a few dozen House bills that the upper chamber has ignored.

That wasn’t exactly the overarching message from GOP lawmakers. They tried to position the above 8 percent unemployment as good, but not good enough. America “can do better,” they said.

“The jobs numbers today are certainly welcome news,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said. “I think all of us want to see more Americans get back to work. But as my colleagues have laid out, we could do a lot better.”

Boehner said that still-too-high unemployment rate is the “story now for 36 straight months.”

“While there are flickers of hope in our recovery and certainly they’re welcome,” the speaker said. “But the American people were promised by the president that unemployment would not exceed 8 percent. And here we are 36 straight months with unemployment over 8 percent.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0212/72415.html#ixzz1lKl1l9Xn