I don’t think it is healthy for conservatives to scream that both the polls and the jobs report are cooked. I think we can agree there may be statistical errors in both, but I think Phil Klein has the best take on why the jobs number may not be terribly off, but why it is not a good thing. And I think instead of screaming conspiracy, we should explain what is going on and how bad it is.

As Phil notes, the reason for the drop in unemployment is not that people have suddenly gone out and found a bunch of new full time jobs. It’s that part time workers have given up looking for full time work and are now considering their part time jobs to be full time.

a more detailed look at these numbers shows that 572,000 — or about 67 percent — of the reported job gains that contributed to the reduction in the unemployment rate came from workers who had to settle for part time work. BLS explains that, “The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose from 8.0 million in August to 8.6 million in September. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.”

In other words, Barack Obama has failed again to make eye contact with the problem and now his administration is trying to spin these numbers as good instead of actually looking at the jobs people are suddenly considering full time.

Flipping burgers at McDonalds on a part time basis has suddenly become a job Barack Obama wants to brag about as a full time success story.

There’s the issue. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s crap.