Soledad O'Brien Defends Obama's Jobs Record: 'Jobs Have Been Moving Overseas for Decades'

With the release of another horrid jobs report Friday, the Obama-loving media are already out in force trying to spin the numbers so they don't hurt the reelection prospects of the current White House resident.

On CNN's Starting Point Friday, known Obama lover Soledad O'Brien defended the President's jobs record by telling Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-Tx.), "This is not in the last three years suddenly jobs started picking up from S&P 500 companies moving overseas. It has been twenty plus years of jobs moving overseas because of better opportunities certainly overseas" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

SOLEDAD O’BRIEN, ANCHOR: Christine was breaking down government jobs for us and then private sector jobs, and she said 13,000 jobs in government lost, 82,000 private sector jobs gained. So how much of this is a problem really of these S&P 500 companies that have moved overseas? Because when you look at their numbers of job growth, they’re actually do much better than we’re doing here in the United States and for those companies overseas.

CONGRESSMAN JEB HENSARLING (R-TEXAS): Well the question would be why is anybody wanting to move jobs overseas? And that is because the President's policies have failed and are helping send capital and sending jobs overseas. I mean, the bigger story is just to have a tread the water economy you need 150,000 jobs to keep pace with new entrants, and we received less than half of that, and the trend line’s been in the wrong direction. And as you probably know, the real story is even worse because if you look at the labor force participation rate that this monthly unemployment number is based upon, we have had millions just give up and leave the labor force.

O’BRIEN: Right, Christine was just mentioning that a moment ago, but when you talk about why are jobs moving overseas and you say because this president, well really, jobs have been moving overseas for decades now. Right? I mean, this is not in the last three years suddenly jobs started picking up from S&P 500 companies moving overseas. It has been twenty plus years of jobs moving overseas because of better opportunities certainly overseas.

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Now in fairness, she's right. In particular, manufacturing jobs peaked in this country at 19,553,000 in June 1979.

Does that make it all Jimmy Carter's fault?

The reality is that companies have indeed been moving jobs overseas for many decades, and virtually every presidential candidate since has promised to do something about it. This includes George W. Bush as well as a certain junior senator from Illinois.

The difference is that when Bush was in office, he was severely attacked by media members for the continued departure of American jobs to other countries. Folks like O'Brien didn't defend him saying that this had been a multi-decade trend.

But now that the labor markets are clearly stalling thereby threatening Obama's reelection, O'Brien feels the need to add some historical reference to the problem in order to defend the man she voted for and continues to support regardless of his record.

She's some fine journalist, isn't she?