LA Times: They get it?

I don't know if LA Times is MSM or just another "in that dark corner" type of newspaper but I like the following report. It seems as if they actually get it.

LA TIMES:

Inconsistent messages on Obama's stimulus package:

Confused about President Obama's stimulus package? The administration may not be the place to find clarity. The White House leadership has made statements about the stimulus that often are inconsistent -- and at odds with facts put out by the administration.

Effect of the stimulus

* Vice President Joe Biden on Friday: The stimulus "is responsible for over 1 million jobs so far."

* White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett on Oct. 18: The stimulus "really staved off a disaster and we saved millions of jobs around the country."

* White House release June 2: "Just over 100 days in, over 150,000 jobs have been created or saved."

* White House senior advisor David Axelrod on June 7: "The stimulus itself has produced hundreds of thousands of jobs."

Purpose of stimulus

* Vice President Biden on June 2: The stimulus is "an initial big jolt to give the economy a real head start."

* Biden on July 26: The stimulus "was intended to provide steady support for our economy over an extended period -- not a jolt that would last only a few months."

Life span of stimulus

* Obama on Jan. 28, two weeks before passage: "Most of the money we're investing as part of this plan will get out the door immediately and go directly to job creation."

* Obama on July 11: "But as I made clear at the time it was passed, the [stimulus] was not designed to work in four moths -- it was designed to work over two years."

Jobs saved or created by the stimulus

* Christina Romer, Council of Economic Advisers chairwoman, on July 13 when asked if she knew the number of jobs that had been saved or created: "It's very hard to say exactly, because you don't know what the baseline is, because you don't know what the economy would have done without it."

* Romer and vice presidential advisor Jared Bernstein released a report Jan. 10 that included a graph titled, "Unemployment Rate with and without the Recovery Plan." The graph showed that with the stimulus, unemployment would not exceed 8%, and without it, unemployment would reach about 9%. Unemployment is now 9.8%.

* Bernstein on June 8 said of the report: "Looking back, it was clearly too optimistic."