Baghdad Bob Gibbs Spins the Stimulus Created or Saved Jobs

Baghdad Bob Gibbs has his hands full lately spinning the created or saved jobs stories that are supposed to prove the $787 billion stimulus wasn't a complete waste of taxpayer's money.  Yesterday the AP noted that a report of 30,000 jobs created or saved by the stimulus was full of problems:

"The AP review found some counts were more than 10 times as high as the actual number of jobs; some jobs credited to the stimulus program were counted two and sometimes more than four times; and other jobs were credited to stimulus spending when none was produced."

The White House blog did a fact check on the AP report, yes seriously they did.  Of course the mistakes  found by AP weren't the government's fault, the mistakes were caused by the stupid people who received the money:

Governors, mayors, county executives, private businesses and community organizations across the country submit reports to Recovery.gov so that you can get an unprecedented look at how your taxpayer dollars are being spent creating jobs and boosting the economy through the Recovery Act. These reports are not from the federal government – but from the very people putting Recovery funds to work. 

Well that's a relief that is!  I feel so much better now knowing that it was just the people who got the money who gave the inflated figures on jobs created or saved.   The White House then reported they would release an exact accounting of jobs "created and saved" on Recovery.Gov today at 3:00, it's now 3:59 and still no report.   Jake Tapper got an advance on the report and writes:

The numbers come from Congressionally-mandated reports submitted earlier this month by tens of thousands of state and local governments, private companies, colleges, universities, and community organizations nationwide, administration officials said, with the majority of the funds coming from state governments.

Factoring jobs indirectly created from the stimulus -- not reflected in these numbers -- an administration official says in a statement that "because these reports show that less than half of the spending through that date created or saved about 650,000 jobs, they confirm government and private forecaster’s estimates that overall Recovery Act spending has created and saved at least 1 million jobs."

So the new numbers come from the same people who received the money but these are Congressionally mandated reports so I guess they are supposed to be reliable this time.   Jake Tapper asked Gibbs today why the American people should believe these numbers:

TAPPER:  How credible should the American people consider these numbers, given that in many cases they're rough estimates and there has been some reporting problems in the past?

GIBBS:  Well, I -- there -- there were -- there was a reporting problem with one of the contracting numbers because that paperwork went up quite quickly.  They've had a chance to go through the numbers over the past couple weeks and address any confusion or errors.  This is paperwork directly from a project that money has been appropriated for, so I think the American people can have confidence in them.

Say what?  Here is the latest screen shot from Recovery.gov that shows the new "created or saved" magical jobs numbers:

Jobs Created or Saved as Reported by Recipients that were misleading before but now have the Federal government seal of approval.   Does anyone else think it is not a coincidence these numbers are coming late on a Friday?

Via Michelle Malkin Republican.Senate.Gov has a top ten list of "Created or Saved Jobs" stories spun by this administration to prove the $787 billion stimulus was not a complete waste of taxpayer's dollars.