Nathan Deal, Asshole of the Day for September 22, 2014
The August unemployment numbers are out, and Georgia has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
Well, that's if you believe the Bureau of Labor Statistics, what with all their statisticians and number crunching software. One guy who doesn't believe the numbers is Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who suspects sinister forces:
“It’s ironic that in a year in which Republican governors are leading some of the states that are making the most progress, that they almost, without exception, are classified as having a bump in their unemployment rates,” he said in a clip circulated by the Democratic Governors Association. “Whereas states that are under Democrat governors’ control, they are all showing that their unemployment rate has dropped. And I don’t know how you account for that. Maybe there is some influence here that we don’t know about.”
I don't know how you account for Democratic run states having declining unemployment and Republican run states doing worse. It's simply unbelievable that these results could be true to Gov. Deal. He wants us to believe that he can't contemplate that maybe Republican policies don't work, and don't help create jobs.
And since he can't look at his policies for being ranked worst for unemployment, he suspects the Obama administration is up to something.
Now never mind that when the July unemployment numbers came out and Georgia was ranked 2nd worst he claimed no conspiracy-- nope, he only thinks there's something afoot when he's ranked dead last.
It used to be that politicians, when made to look bad, would blame the "mainstream media". But that's not good enough for Gov. Deal. He wants to blame the numbers and the people who generate them, and have us believe that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is nothing more than a bunch of partisan hacks. He's like all the guys who insisted the Romney poll numbers were skewed, and needed to be unskewed, even though a month later they all turned out to be right. They call the people who refuse to believe Obama was born in the US, despite ample documentation, "birthers"; I'm suggesting we start calling guys like Gov. Deal who refuse to believe numbers as "mathers".
Gov. Deal has no alternative numbers to argue here-- he can't point to his numbers versus the governments and say the discrepancy is suspicious. Rather, he asserts that the unflattering numbers must be wrong because he says so. He's not a statistician, and he hasn't cited any statisticians that dispute the numbers, but he wants us to believe the books have been cooked to hurt his reelection chances. And for that, he is the Asshole of the Day.
It is Nathan Deal's first time as Asshole of the Day.
Full story: Politico.