And how about that economy?

From Billmon:

At least somebody in the White House press corps gets it:

Q: We've been talking about whether or not the CEA forecast of adding 2.6 million jobs is correct. But actually what CEA forecast was that the average number of jobs in 2004 would be 2.6 million higher than in 2003, which for reasons I won't bore everyone with implies a rate of growth in jobs well beyond the, roughly, 200,000 a month that would be implied by a 2.6 million rise in jobs. The bottom line here is that the CEA is forecasting, at a minimum, about 300,000 jobs a month will be created. Do you stand by that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Um, what was the question again?

OK, so I made that last part up. What Scottie actually said was: "Blah blah blah. Woof woof woof."

The really striking thing, though, is how snarly some of the mutts in the White House media kennel are getting. Check out some of this dialogue, courtesy of Norbizness: The rest of the post.

And the press does get snarly. I guess those sleeping dogs are finally waking up. Poor Scotty.

Check it out. It's good Billmon. And Billmon understands the fine points of economics, unlike yours truly.

And, Josh Marshall's comment on the situation:

Some mumbo-jumbo just turns out to be ... well, too mumbo. This from CNN ...

The White House backed away Wednesday from its own prediction that the economy will add 2.6 million new jobs before the end of this year, saying the forecast was the work of number-crunchers and that President Bush was not a statistician.

I think we'd all agree to that last point. But can he hire one?