Kerry's Right, National Review's Lowry Lies. CeCi...well who cares...

Lowry falsely claimed Kerry's job numbers were "out of date"; Post's Connolly noted Lowry's "very good point"

National Review editor Rich Lowry erroneously asserted that the jobs figure Senator John Kerry cited during the October 8 presidential debate -- 1.6 million lost since President George W. Bush took office -- was outdated. Appearing on FOX News Channel's On the Record with Greta Van Susteren following the second presidential debate (just past midnight on October 9), Lowry claimed that Kerry "twice misstated the job loss number, saying 1.6 million, which is a number that is out of date but it is inconvenient for him to update it, so he didn't."

But Kerry's numbers are not "out of date." According to the latest job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), approximately 1,634,000 private-sector jobs have been lost between January 2001 (when Bush took office) and September 2004. (To view the numbers, click here, select "Total Private Employment -- Seasonally Adjusted," then select "retrieve data.")

Later on the program, Washington Post staff writer Ceci Connolly stated that Lowry had made "a very good point";