Union Math?

Here's the head of the AFL-CIO..

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To quote..

..and this president has created more jobs during a recession than president Bush did for eight years with an almost trillion dollar surplus..

Of course Olbermann just sat there and nodded, but this guy has been saying the same thing on several other networks without much challenge. So where is he getting those stats?

This wiki entry claims no such thing, showing a net loss of 3 million as of June 2010. If he's using only the created jobs without subtracting the lost jobs--the overall total still being significantly negative--then that's deceptive as hell. Counting Census and other federal jobs would also be deceptive.

As to the "almost trillion dollar surplus" for Bush, not really:

When the Bush Administration issued its budget on April 9, 2001, it predicted a budget surplus outside Social Security of $125 billion for fiscal year 2001, which at that time was six months complete.(1) Now, four months later, the predicted $125 billion surplus has practically disappeared. How did this happen? The quick answer is that the recently enacted tax-cut reduced revenues by $74 billion in 2001 and the economy slowed significantly, so that revenue collections fell below predicted levels.

Then of course something happened the left in general likes to ignore when talking about the Bush years--a massive terrorist attack. The stock market crashed, jobs were cut, and defense spending rose. Stuff happens as they say--which is why rosy projections from the CBO should always be taken with a grain of salt. And so should spokeshacks like Mr. Trumka.

And maybe the reason nobody's challenging him stems from the fact they know he's a shill and expect as much, and know the kind of answer they will get. Or maybe they're just afraid in general--the guy looks like he might have a pretty firm handshake.