Venturing into the world of funhouse mirrors, former President Obama's consigliere, Valerie Jarrett, claimed on national television that President Obama deserves the credit for Friday's stellar jobless numbers, which clocked in at 3.9%, the lowest they've been in more than 20 years.

...Jarrett told a disbelieving Alisyn Camerota (check out Camerota's expression on the Grabien video here) at CNN. The transcript reads:

CAMEROTA: “The breaking news that we just had moments ago were the new job numbers, the lowest in anybody’s memory, 3.9 percent unemployment rate. It’s been 15 months of Donald Trump’s presidency. Do you give him credit for that?”

JARRETT: “Look, I think we have to look at it over a longer horizon than that. If you think about what the economy was like when President Obama took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Under his watch the unemployment rate dropped in half and it’s encouraging to see that we’re continuing to make progress. We want to see wages go up and I think that’s an important focus and I was glad to see you talk about that too. So for the workers out there who are back to work today, I think it’s very encouraging.”

What we learn here is that Jarrett is one surreal fanatic, utterly uwilling to give President Trump a scintilla of credit for the state of the economy, even though the numbers have occurred on Trump's watch, well into his presidency, and directly following his tax cuts and deregulatory moves, all of which are known engine starters for an economy. Black support and youth support has shot up for Trump and his Republicans as a result of these economic numbers, because people know what they are seeing with their very own eyes.

Most Democrats take a 'yes-but' approach in response to these embarrassing-for-Democrats numbers, such as Nancy Pelosi (no stranger to surreal statements herself), who called the worker bonuses that followed the tax cuts "crumbs." Not Jarrett. She just states the opposite of the cold hard reality, making herself even nuttier than Pelosi.

Twitchy has a good collection of catcalls that followed from Twitterers, who found her claims utterly ridiculous.

Perhaps that's more than just a sorry bid to shift the 'narrative' and public perceptions. But it might be something different: Note that first sentence quoted, and the last part of it: 'that we're continuing to make progress.

We? Who is 'we'? Jarrett seems to be saying that she's still in power, or deserves to be. It still hasn't sunk in that Democrats lost the election and lost the election for reason: Their abysmal handling of the economy and its deleterious effects on places such as Wisconsin. That is why people voted for Trump. And on some level she must know this even as her 'we' signals her denial. As good numbers roll in from Trump, Valerie Jarrett wants you to think it means she's still in power.

Image credit: Gage Skidmore, via Creative Commons SA 2.0