Conservatives, including the Business & Media Institute, have criticized President Barack Obama's mathematics and language regarding job creation. CNN's Ed Henry brought up that same criticism on Feb. 2 during "Anderson Cooper 360°."
"[T]here are now questions about how many jobs Mr. Obama is promising to create," Ed Henry told viewers of the broadcast. Henry used three separate video clips of Obama talking about jobs to illustrate the way the President "seemed to move the goal post" for job creation.
Henry began with a clip of Obama's remarks on Nov. 22, 2008 when he said his team would be working on a plan to create 2.5 million more jobs in two years (by January 2011).
"By his first weekend in office, the President jacked up the number of jobs to 4 million, but got squishy on the time frame," Henry explained before showing video of Obama from Jan. 31 with a lower estimate.
That day, Obama declared that his administration's plan would save or create 3 million new jobs "over the next few years."
Henry's report included video of press secretary Robert Gibbs dancing to try and answer that question of how many jobs Obama would actually create. Gibbs told reporters: "I'll go back and we'll clarify what all the different numbers are but the bottom line is this. You've got a piece of legislation that creates jobs."
"But Republicans are now wondering if the President has been hedging a little to scale back expectations," Henry concluded.
