http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/05/news/economy/welch-unemployment-rate/index.html?source=cnn_bin

I’m a bit surprised it took this long for someone to level the charge that Jack Welch, former head of GE, has leveled at the Obama administration.

Welch said the jobless numbers released today have been cooked up to make President Obama look good. He doubts the veracity of the report that joblessness fell to 7.8 percent, the lowest race since Obama took office. The jobless rate this past month was 8.1 percent.

I’ve long pondered whether these numbers could be verified independently, or whether the media just accept the figures handed to them by the U.S. Department of Labor. Do I necessarily believe that the figures are rigged, as Welch has suggested? No.

As a believer in a free press and one who dismisses the notion that the “mainstream media” have some insidious liberal bias, I tend to take Labor Department figures at face value. I also believe that the media would report independently whether the feds are rigging these outcomes.

And lest we forget, the “mainstream media” also include plenty of conservative outlets – both print and online – who would spare no expense or effort to embarrass those on the other end of the political spectrum.

If there was any funny business, don’t think for an instant that conservative talkers wouldn’t blow the whistle.