If the Republicans spin it that way, it must be true. . .

There are a lot of bad things about Kausfiles, and sometimes I find it difficult to sort them all out. There’s the irrational Kerry hatred (I’d vote for the Philadelphia phonebook before I’d vote for John Kerry; PANIC WATCH!! John Kerry only leads by nine points!!!) combined with the claim that he plans to vote for Kerry. There’s also the terrible formatting of the column (Editor- Is this guy a pointless hack? Time will tell!).

What might bother me the most, however, is the receptivity to Republican spin points. Two recent examples: Yesterday, Kaus wrote

This John Crudele column from Thursday’s N.Y. Post is now looking mighty prescient. It also offers a relatively benign, statistical explanation for the weak July job growth numbers released today. … Update: Alert reader C.G. notes that the “Net Birth/Death Adjustment,” the statistical factor Crudele cites, subtracted 91,000 jobs from the published total for July, according to theBureau of Labor Statistics’ Web site. Even if you add back in all those jobs, the net job total is still only 123,000–substantially less than Wall Street’s expectations. … P.S.: Note also that the “birth/death” adjustment added 182,000 jobs to last month’s total. Without it, the BLS would have reported a net job loss of more than 100,000 for June. … Still, given the importance attached to the monthly jobs number, it’s disturbing that it contains such a large fudge factor. Even the BLS concedes the “birth/death” adjustment is imprecise–“the most problematic part of the estimation process.” … P.P.S.: The other glaring flaw in the BLS “payroll” survey, from which the net job number is generated, is that (as the BLS puts it) “Data exclude proprietors, self-employed … farm workers, and domestic workers.” The exclusion of the self-employed seems particularly troubling, given the economy’s apparent increased reliance on freelancers and consultants, etc. (For additional criticism of the payroll survey, see this Heritage paper.) … P.P.P.S.: The point isn’t that the weak July number should be ignored. But a) maybe we should pay a bit more attention to the smaller–but seemingly more comprehensive–government survey of households, which has been delivering relatively good news (629,000 jobs in July); and b) maybe we should treat the monthly fluctuations in the BLS payroll survey a bit more like we treat daily fluctuations in the Rasmussen poll and a bit less like the word of God. 8:24 A.M.

What we have hear is desperation to believe the things that the Republicans are saying about the economy. See Krugman, or any other respectable economist, for reasons why the payroll survey is better than the household survey. Also note that the Republicans dropped all mention of how the household survey is better when it was spewing out worse numbers than the payroll survey over the last four or five months. Indeed, the critiques that Kaus levels at the payroll survey are evident, to a greater degree, in the household survey. Yet, Mickey devours it all; I get the sense that he believes the Republicans must be right because they have such a talent for spinning the press.

Example Two:

If Bush did blow part of the Al Qaeda investigation by prematurely revealing the name of a Pakistani computer engineer who’d been “turned” and was operating as a double agent, that’s a serious screw-up. (Juan Cole is all over this angle.) But how many of those who will jump on Bush for any misguided revelation are the same people (e.g. Howard Dean, WaPo) who a week ago were the very ones pressuring him to reveal more about why he’d issued an “alert” about a three year old plot to blow up financial institutions–insinuating he was doing it for political reasons? … Even shorter spin sum-up: How dare you be cowed by us! … 11:53 P.M.

A normal person, and perhaps just about anyone not intimately connected with the Bush administration, might suggest that there’s potential for a happy middle ground; you can give some good reasons for the assertion of a particular terror alert without revealing the identities of all your secret operatives. Not Mickey!! He’s not one to be fooled by all the fancy “logic” and “reason” and “sanity” on the part of the Dems; he’ll get to the bottom of this, or no one will.