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....
