Undeterred by stubbornly high unemployment rates, and a stimulus plan that has fallen flat, talk of a second stimulus package is growing louder.  But to shed the unsuccessful “stimulus” moniker, Democrats and government labor unions have adopted a “jobs plan.”

Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist who’s never seen a government expenditure he didn’t like, Sunday  pointed to a “study” by the Economic Policy Institute, which alleges spending $40 billion over 3 years could create about a million “public-service” jobs.

In other words, Krugman and EPI would see fit to simply create government jobs, instead of trying to help the private sector.  That makes sense, given who supports EPI.

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It never ceases to amaze me how differently the Old Media treats Republican presidents compared to how they treat Democrat Presidents during times of unemployment reporting. Today, in the vaunted era of Obama, the unemployment numbers for November 2009 have come out and it shows some of the highest unemployment numbers since the Great Depression. Despite that the Old Media seems to be playing this as a sign of optimism. Such optimism was decidedly not in the cards when that same Old Media was reporting rates during Bush’s years, however.

Let’s take two reports from The New York Times for example. One from September 7, 2002 in Bush’s first term and one from December 4, 2009, early in the Obama presidency.

In 2002, The New York Times reported Bush’s 5.7 percent unemployment rate, noting that it was a drop from 5.9 percent, with the following headline: Unemployment Fell in August, But Drop Is Called Insignificant.

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