I was listening to the show via podcast tonight, and here’s a little fireball from the show in light of President Bush’s upcoming State of the Union address.

Tim puts up a chart on his show, Meet the Press and states:

Here’s the first five years of the Bush/Cheney administration, and I’ll put it on the screen, Unemployment was 4.2% in 2001, it’s now 4.9%, up 17%…

Who monitors these guys except for me? 17%?! What a ridiculous comment, and an inflammatory way to present a statistic. If he had a live audience and I was there I would “boo” him.

Unbelievable

Unemployment may be up 0.7%, Tim, you Moonbat, but it sure as hell isn’t 17%. Nice one. (4.9 - 4.2 = 0.7) Okay, so maybe it’s not Tim’s fault but the fault of the Moonbats who produce his charts. I know what they’re up to, and here it is: (0.7/4.2 = .17) Faulty, fallacious, a lie. Liars and the lying liars who tell them; Moonbats!

Said Uncle Jack @ 9:56 pm | Permalink   

1. I know that math trick…..the difference between 4.2 and 4.9 is, I believe, 17%.

   Does this make sense? That “.7″ is 17% of the total between zero and 4.2%

   Comment by Kender — 1/29/2006 @ 10:10 pm

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2. WHO CARES! BUSH LIED! THOUSANDS DIED!!! YARRRRRGGGHH!

   

   Comment by Duncan Avatar — 1/29/2006 @ 10:34 pm

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3. Bush ratings sink in latest poll

   WASHINGTON ? As President Bush prepares for next week’s State of the Union address, he faces widespr

   Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — 1/29/2006 @ 11:02 pm

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4. But didn’t you know, if it is on a “main stream media” news report, you are not allowed to question it. If they tell you that 2+2 equals Bush Lying, that is gospel fact. Much like the “fact” that since Cindy Sheehan’s ADULT son CHOSE to enlist in the U.S. Army, and was (tragicly) killed in combat, that entitles her to call the President a murderer and consort with COMMUNIST DICTATORS, without question. Man, you just gotta love that moonbat logic (if you can call it logic).

   Comment by The Smoke Eater — 1/29/2006 @ 11:20 pm

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5. Kender, sarcasm right? You can’t take the difference between a percent and a percent and say that the underlying number changed by x percent. It’s not only illogical, it’s a lie.

   Unemployment rose 0.7% in five years to 4.9%. And, if someone can’t be one of the 95 out of a hundred to find employment, obviously unemployable.

   Comment by Uncle Jack — 1/30/2006 @ 6:21 am

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6. Actually, it is legitimate to denote a percentage increase over a specific bracket of time, as in “the unemployment rate increased X%, from 4.2 to 4.9 over the past Y years.” It’s no different than saying earnings were down by 50%, even though unemployment is expressed as a percent itself.

   If you take the raw unemployment index (not expressed as a percent) and compare it over time, it should also reflect a near-17% difference.

   Rather than telling us merely raw numbers or percents, this notion of comparing rates at differing times is intended to indicate whether there are trends in the data (e.g., from 1997-2001, it might’ve been 12%, or 2%); it tells us not the general direction, but the specific extent.

   That said - it’s clear that 17% was used to add an element of hysteria to the numbers. I mean, 4.2 to 4.9 doesn’t sound quite as alarming as does nearly 20%.

   And I think that’s what you were trying to say.

   Comment by liv — 1/30/2006 @ 11:53 am

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7. Russert used the proper terms.

   It’s up “seven-tenths of a point” — but unemployment is 17% larger that it was over the difference in time.

   Comment by Denny Hix — 1/30/2006 @ 2:13 pm

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8. I remember during clintons reign that the MSM crowed about how low clinton had unemployment…..and it was running above 5 percent…..so between five and six percent is a good figure for a democrat but a bad figure for a republican…..uhhuh.

   No wonder most of the people in this country don’t know what’s going on……they are dizzy from the constant spin the MSM puts on the news.

   Comment by Kender — 1/30/2006 @ 5:45 pm

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9. Of course with Clinton, it CAME DOWN to under 5%. With Bush, it’s moved up.

   Comment by Ronald Reagan — 1/31/2006 @ 12:44 pm

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10. Actually dipwad (I refuse to call a bucket of crap by the name of a Great Patriot), unemployment has hovered around 5% for years, and under Bush started out around 5.something percent, so it still went down during Bush’s tenure….

    Comment by Kender — 1/31/2006 @ 12:47 pm

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11. Hix - WRONG!

    You don’t divide a gain in percent by the original percent and then claim it went up by x percent. You’re already stating the number in percentage terms!; So it’s simple addition, the proper way to state it is “unemployment went up by 0.7%” End of story. Damn. You must be educated in a public school, like Russert.

    Comment by Uncle Jack — 1/31/2006 @ 10:25 pm

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12. And, it’s all conversation anyway. If you can’t be one of 95 out of 100 worth hiring, you’re not worth hiring.

    Comment by Uncle Jack — 1/31/2006 @ 10:28 pm

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13. Of course with Clinton, it CAME DOWN to under 5%. With Bush, it’s moved up.

    The more I see this comment sitting here the more I wonder at the absolute stupidity of the moron that posted it…..I boggle at the intellect that must have taken a bit of wishful thinking and tossed it up, hoping that nobody would notice that the commenter that first wrote these words is a damnable idiot.

    Seriously….did you even do one second worth of research on this before commenting?

    Comment by Kender — 2/1/2006 @ 2:55 am

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