Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Here’s the peroration of the editors of the Wall Street Journal’s remarks on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation for May 2016:

Which brings us back to Mr. Obama’s magical economic recovery tour. He kicked it off this week with a return to Elkhart, Indiana, where he touted the area’s 4% jobless rate as the recreational-vehicle industry has recovered. He knows his legacy is on the line in November, and he can read the polls that show that Donald Trump is leading Hillary Clinton on who would do better for the economy.

Thus his economic pep talk and attempt to rebut what he called “myths” spread by Republicans and the “conservative” media about slow growth and mediocre incomes. But he doesn’t need to blame us. His bigger beef is with Mrs. Clinton and Bernie Sanders, who have spent the last year deploring the economic condition of America’s middle class. And as of Friday with his own Labor Department, which reported facts that are hard even for this President to spin away.

But who ya gonna believe? The president or your own lyin’ eyes? which highlights the predicament in which Hillary Clinton finds herself. Willy nilly she’s running for President Obama’s third term and on her husband’s coat tails. Indeed, she has no campaign without them. But she’s also basing her campaign on running against Obama’s record and her husband’s policies. It’s an impossible balancing act. No wonder she’s counting on a tribal election.