From Swamppolitics.com …

John McCain himself has admitted that he is not the best student of the economy, but tonight the Republican nominee for president missed the official mark by a fairly long-shot with his discussion of unemployment during the Great Depression.

The question came up in those “presidential questions” that CBS News has been asking of the candidates. The series aired tonight included the candidates’ views of the best thing and the worst thing that ever happened to this nation.

Both McCain and Democratic rival Barack Obama agreed that the best thing was the founding of the nation, the drafting of a Constitution that has served Americans through the centuries. But the Depression was the worst thing, in McCain’s view, and slavery was the worst thing, in Obama’s view.

“Maybe the worst thing that happened to America, in modern times is the Great Depression,” McCain told CBS Evening News’ Katie Couric. “It affected probably more, a greater percentage of our population than any other economic or other impact that we experienced. And literally, half the population, or 40 percent. Whatever it was, huge numbers that are incomprehensible were out of work. And people literally starved in America. And that, we can’t ever repeat.”

It was big, all right. But, “whatever it was,” it wasn’t 40 or 50 percent. At the height, or nadir, of the Great Depression, unemployment reached 24.9 percent.