UNIMPRESSED WITH THE NUMBERS: Jack Welch: “Obama Is Manipulating The Jobs Numbers Because His Debate Performance Was Awful.” The sudden change certainly was convenient.

UPDATE: “Pretty soon we will have only a few million people employed and ‘full employment’ in this country.”

The economy is creating so few jobs that millions are staying out of the labor market, thereby prevent the unemployment rate from soaring. In September we created a measly 114,000 jobs, but the rate declined to 7.8 percent.

Consider that if labor force participation had held even since January (when it was 8.3 percent), the jobless rate would be 8.4 percent. If the job participation rate were the same as when Barack Obama took office, the rate would be 10.7 percent. The broader U-6 rate (unemployed plus total employed part time for economic reasons) held steady at 14.7 percent. Obama can spin the numbers anyway he likes, but this is not an economic “recovery” in a meaningful sense. We are adding fewer jobs on average per month than we did last year (143,00 vs. 153,000).

When you can’t trust the numbers, it becomes harder still to have a meaningful recovery.

ANOTHER UPDATE: A Cynical President Has Earned A Cynical Doubt. “Yeah, sorry. But this has been a very cynical presidency, protected by a press that is cynical about everything but their adored one, and it’s made me cynical in response.”

MORE: James Pethokoukis: That Sickly, Stagnant September Jobs Report. “Is this the Obama October Surprise? Only in an era of depressingly diminished expectations could the September jobs report be called a good one. It really isn’t. Not at all.”

Plus, a reprise and update of that devastating graphic of what Obama promised vs. what he delivered.

And a look at the percentage of Americans who are employed, which still stinks:

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Archbishop Tutu — Please Apologize To The Jews:

This is not anti-Zionism. It is not criticism of Israel or defense of Palestinian rights. It is not in the gray zone: it is ugly filth of the lowest kind, gutter anti-Semitism mixed with genocidal rage. The very word “Nazi,” tweeted the movement, is a combination of NAtionalist and ZIonist. Simple, really, once you see through the Jewish lies to understand the Jewish-Hitler alliance for what it really was. . . .

Obviously Archbishop Tutu had no idea he was getting in bed with Nazi-class Jew haters and aspiring genocidaires when he allowed the Free Gaza Movement the use of his name. Greta Berlin presumably doesn’t wear her Nazi-loving heart on her sleeve when mingling with the Great and the Good and trying to pass herself off as a respectable humanitarian. But because of his enormous global stature and the contentious nature of this particular issue, the archbishop had a duty to himself, to the world and to the Anglican Communion to vet the organization before offering his support.

Now that the truth is known, the Archbishop must move quickly to avoid causing grave harm to Christian-Jewish relations and the cause of justice around the world. He must express his regret to those Christians and Jews who have been hurt and confused by his inadvertent dalliance with hate.

I think this expresses a touching degree of faith.

I’M SHOCKED, SHOCKED: small business owners in swing states give debate edge to Romney.

LEAH CYPRESS: Parental Responsibility and the Rhetoric Against Circumcision. “New York City’s regulation of a Jewish tradition does little more than add to a growing aura of hostility and ignorance surrounding a health decision. . . . As a parent, it seems to me that most of these outraged people are unaware of the actual extent of ‘the authority of parents over the life of their child,’ including the authority and responsibility to make life-changing decisions for them.” It’s mostly just important to be outraged, because from that outrage comes their own authority, or pretense thereto.

AT AMAZON, coupons galore in Health & Personal Care.

MEGAN MCARDLE ON THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S LAYOFF-NOTICE FLIMFLAMMERY:

Presumably the purpose of the law is not to create legal fees; it is to give employees notice of potential layoffs so that they can arrange their finances and otherwise plan for the hard times that may be coming down the road. If the Obama administration does not think that employees should have notice of these potential dangers, then it should say so forthrightly, and try to get this very bad law repealed. On the other hand, if it thinks that maybe it’s a good thing for employees to have advanced notice that they might soon not have a paycheck, then it seems odd to first, pressure contractors not to send those notices, and second, offer to help the contractors avoid paying any legal damages that their failure might have incurred.

Now, the administration argues that the notices aren’t required, because the sequester might not happen. But that’s a matter for the court to determine, not the administration. If the administration is correct, then there should be no need to sweeten the pot. But if there is a real risk that employees will win a lawsuit, then it seems wrong to put the taxpayers on the hook for what is essentially an Obama campaign expense.

Wrong? Maybe. But it’s also their core approach in all sorts of ways.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The majority of Switzerland’s students opt for vocational training instead of college — and that does not mean the country is dumbing down.

WASHINGTON EXAMINER: No, Romney will not raise taxes on the middle class.

The “nonpartisan” report Obama refers to came out in August from the left-wing Tax Policy Center, or TPC, purporting to show that Romney would have to eliminate $86 billion in middle-class tax breaks to pay for his 20 percent across-the-board rate reduction.

Its authors — one of whom is a recent Obama employee — have subsequently admitted that in the absence of details about Romney’s tax plan, they simply made them up. They also admitted their numbers came out wrong because they guessed which tax breaks Romney would eliminate and which ones were “off the table.” But what if Romney had other ideas and eliminated, say, exclusions for state and local bonds and life insurance products? Presto: The tax gap would instantly fall from $86 billion to $41 billion.

The TPC study also assumed Obamacare would not be repealed. But if Romney wins the election, repeals Obamacare’s tax hikes and pays for it with Obamacare spending reductions, that would free up an additional $29 billion.

That brings the gap down to just $12 billion, which could easily be made up by limiting itemized deductions for high-earners or phasing out their exemptions. Romney has often said he would be open to this. And he might not even have to do it — so far, this analysis assumes economic growth does nothing to close the gap, and that other revenue-raisers, such as oil and gas leases, are not expanded in a Romney administration.

It’s like it’s all just a bunch of election-year hooey or something.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Parent-Loan Trap. “Today, a dozen years on, Ms. Nemenzo’s debt not only remains, it’s also nearly doubled, with fees and interest, to $33,000. Though Ms. Almendral is repaying the loans herself, her mother continues to pay the price for loans she couldn’t afford: Falling into delinquency on the loans had damaged her credit, making her ineligible to borrow more when it came time for Ms. Almendral’s sister to go to college. . . . A joint examination by ProPublica and The Chronicle of Higher Education has found that PLUS loans can sometimes hurt the very families they are intended to help: The loans are both remarkably easy to get and nearly impossible to get out from under for families who’ve overreached. When a parent applies for a PLUS loan, the government checks credit history, but it doesn’t assess whether the borrower has the ability to repay the loan. It doesn’t check income. It doesn’t check employment status. It doesn’t check how much other debt—like a mortgage or other student loans—the borrower is already on the hook for. . . . Colleges rarely advise families on how much is too much. After a student’s own federal borrowing is maxed out, financial-aid offices often recommend large PLUS loans for parents.”

If a private industry did this sort of thing, it would be considered predatory.

THE HILL: Liberals Slam Obama On Social Security.

MARK TAPSCOTT DELIVERS A BRUISING SMACKDOWN TO WAPO BLOGGER ERIK WEMPLE. Plus this knife-twisting: “A journalist who was once offered the editorship of the Village Voice ought to know better.”

UPDATE: Oops, I scheduled this last night, and then Mark posted this morning before it appeared.

NEW YORKER: White House Authorizes Search For President’s Mojo.

The White House today announced that it was offering a “substantial cash reward” for information leading to “the location and safe return of President Obama’s mojo.”

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney announced the search with an air of urgency: “We will use every resource at our disposal to ensure the return of the President’s mojo, and that goes double for his groove.”

Mr. Carney said that as of late Wednesday afternoon no one at the White House knew the President’s mojo was missing, but minutes into last night’s televised debate “it became clear that something was terribly, horribly wrong.”

Ouch.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Boomer Power And the War On The Young.

But hey, there are lots of bartending and waitressing jobs opening up!

AND IN THIS CORNER IS WASHINGTON POST BLOGGER ERIK WEMPLE: Who I challenged this morning to explain exactly what he thinks The Washington Examiner “over-promised and under-delivered” with its recent special report – The Obama You Don’t Know.

HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? (CONT’D): The Plight of Young, Black Men Is Worse Than You Think.

On the day Barack Obama was inaugurated in 2009, Pettit said, “there was hope that perhaps the U.S. was becoming a post-racial society.” But it wasn’t true then, and it’s not true now. The gap between blacks and whites remains wide in employment, income, wealth, and health. And as Bloomberg’s David J. Lynch reported earlier this month: “The nation’s first African-American president hasn’t done much for African-Americans.”

The unemployment rate and the employment-to-population ratio reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics are based on a survey of households—people “who are not inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities and homes for the aged) and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces.”

The reported figures are bad enough. The employment/population ratio for black males aged 16-24 was 33 percent in August, vs. 52 percent for white males of the same age group. But the black number is skewed upward by the exclusion of jail and prison inmates. The white number is also skewed upward, but less so because a smaller share of young white males are incarcerated.

Obama could have done something for drug decriminalization, but didn’t.

COMPASSION: Has Elizabeth Warren ever done pro bono litigation? “In all of my searches and all of Warren’s disclosures of legal work, there isn’t a single case in which Warren engaged in pro bono work for indigent clients. . . . We will, of course, keep searching. And we invite the Warren campaign to make a full disclosure of the pro bono legal work she has been doing from her Massachusetts office. But as of now, we have at least 22 court cases for major corporations, including chemical, coal and insurance companies, but not a single court case in which Warren offered her services pro bono for an indigent client, or even for a middle class client who has been hammered.”

PROF. JACOBSON: Sorry, AARP: You Own ObamaCare.

The big news is that they’re trying to run away from it. You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

THE DOGS OF POLITICS: If you talk about Romney’s dog incident, shouldn’t you talk about Obama’s?

CHANGE! George Will: Romney’s biggest achievement last night might have been changing the narrative.

HMM: Ohio shocker: GOP closes early voting gap, boosting Romney.

YOU CAN’T WEAR A ROMNEY T-SHIRT, because this is “a Democratic school.”

POLITICS AIN’T BEANBAG: The way we act in one-on-one conflicts would be laughed out of the tactics book by a battalion of pacifist dodos armed with sharpened vegetables.

IF YOU’RE THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN HEAR THE “DOG WHISTLE,” THEN YOU’RE THE DOG: Unhinged: Harper’s Mag accuses Romney of ‘sly’ racist jab at Obama.

UPDATE: Reader Matt Iserman writes: “If dog whistles can only be heard by dogs then, presumably, racist dog whistles can only be heard by racists. So, why is it that the only people who can hear all these ‘racist dog whistles’ are liberals?” Why, indeed?

BLU-RAY DEAL OF THE WEEK: ESPN Films 30 for 30: Collector’s Edition, $43.99.

Related: Blu-Ray Deals Under $10.

Also, today only: Save 51% on “Seven Samurai” or 49% on “The Samurai Trilogy” in the Criterion Collection on Blu-ray. (Bumped).

WHAT’S GOING ON in Illinois?