On Sunday’s This Week, George Stephanopoulos stumbled into the
truth when he told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that Mitt
Romney’s statistic, about how 92.3 percent of all job losses since
President Obama took office have occurred to women, “is accurate.”
That, however, contradicted the liberal party line espoused by ABC reporter David Muir on Wednesday’s World News when he stated:”The non-partisan group PolitiFact saying that number right there is ‘mostly false,’ arguing the President can’t be held responsible for the job picture the day he took office.”
(More in my Wednesday’s night post: “ABC Eagerly Promotes Obama Whopper But Disputes as ‘Mostly False’ an Accurate Romney Stat”)
Audio of Muir and Stephanopoulos: MP3 clip
On Sunday, Geithner called use of the statistic “a ridiculous way to
look at the problem,” prompting Stephanopoulos to press him: “But you do
concede that the number is correct? It’s technically accurate.” As
opposed to accurate nut not technically so? Geithner did not concede the
point.
(This is the same accurate statistic which the Washington Post’s mis-named “The Fact Checker” assessed as “TRUE BUT FALSE.” How silly.)
Geithner was also confronted with Romney’s job loss number on Meet the
Press and Face the Nation. NBC’s David Gregory did not challenge him
when Geithner dismissed it as “ridiculous,” but CBS’s Bob Schieffer did
at least follow up: “Basically, you’re saying that is right, that most
of the jobs that have been lost recently have been lost by women?”
From the Sunday, April 15 This Week on ABC:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Women have been front and center in the
presidential race this week and Governor Romney tried to turn the table
on Democrats who said that Republicans have prosecuted a war on women,
with this argument. Listen.
MITT ROMNEY: The real war on women has been waged by the policies of
the Obama administration. Did you know that of all of the jobs lost
during the Obama years, 92.3 percent of them are women. During the Obama
years, women have suffered.
STEPHANOPOULOS:
Now, I know you disagree with the point that Governor Romney is making,
but that number he’s citing, 92 percent of the job losses are women, is
accurate, isn’t it?
TIMOTHY GEITHNER: It’s a ridiculous way to look at the problem. This
is a political moment. To borrow a line from Governor Cuomo, you’re
going to see a lot of politicians use campaign in fiction, but we have
to govern in fact. This crisis was a very damaging crisis, hurt
everybody. It began, as you know, in early in 2008 and lot of the early
job losses in 2008 affected men, because they affected construction and
manufacturing. As the crisis spread, and state and local governments
were focused to cut back on services, fire a lot of teachers, that
caused a lot of damage to women, too. But what matters is, and this is
why this debate is so important, is what can we do to help families
across America – men and women – not just get back to work but help them
afford college? Help them get access to affordable health care,
preventative care, and make sure we’re strengthening this important
safey net at a time when so many Americans are suffering. And that’s the
debate we’re having across the country and that’s a good debate to
have.
STEPHANOPOULOS: But you completely reject his argument?
GEITHNER: It’s a ridiculous argument. Largely debunked this week by the people who’ve looked at it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Even though – but you do concede that the number is correct. It’s technically accurate.
GEITHNER: Again, the crisis began in early 2008, a year before the
president took office, it was gaining momentum throughout 2008....
-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.
