One argument for the GOP nomination Mitt Romney has over his rivals is that his time in the private sector gave him enough experience to effectively create jobs, and because unemployment figures are so dismal, the nation should put Romney in charge so he can fix it. But with the latest numbers showing unemployment is steadily dropping down to 8.3 percent, Chris Matthews wondered if Romney will be able to sustain that argument for much longer.

Surging Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum downplayed President Obama‘s role in the good news that the unemployment rate fell to 8.5% in December, the lowest level in three years. According to a tweet by Politico‘s Dave Catanese, Santorum claimed unemployment was dropping as a result of widespread “optimism that Republicans will take the White House.”

The news that unemployment fell to 8.6% in November, the lowest level since March of 2009, is sure to be greeted by a predictable mix of celebration and derisive parsing, but behind the scenes, Republicans have got to be producing trouser bricks. Their strategy to defeat President Obama is almost entirely dependent on an economy that’s headed in the wrong direction, but despite their efforts to hamper short-term job growth, a glimmer of (yes) hope has arrived.

New figures released Friday show that unemployment has dropped to 8.6 percent, the lowest the number has been in two-and-a-half years. Employers added 120,000 jobs in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It was appropriately treated as breaking news on Morning Joe this morning, and correctly identified as not just big political news, but as host Joe Scarborough put it, “great news for the president.”

On his show today, Chris Matthews and panel discussed the very likely possibility of a Barack Obama-Mitt Romney showdown in the 2012 election, and amongst all the talk of class warfare and business experience, Matthews asked if American voters would embrace or resent Mitt Romney for his vast wealth and business ties given the anti-business climate in America encouraged by the Occupy Wall Street protests.

On This Week today, George Will claimed that if President Obama should be hoping that the Congressional supercommittee convened to come up with a bipartisan plan to balance the budget and deal with high unemployment will fail, because he can’t run against a do-nothing Congress in 2012 if the public sees Congress is actually doing something. Christiane Amanpour showed a new ABC/Washington Post poll that shows that President Obama and the Republican Congress are roughly given the same amount of trust, 40 percent, when it comes to the issue of job creation.

On Sunday’s State Of The Union, CNN’s Candy Crowley interviewed Vice President Joe Biden and pressed him on his comments that tied failing to pass Obama’s jobs bill to an increase in rape and murder. “Is it your intention to say, when you give these speeches that if Republicans don’t pass the president’s jobs bill, they will be responsible for increases in rape and murder?” Crowley questioned, alluding to Human Events reporter Jason Mattera‘s heated exchange with the Vice President. Biden disputed that he was playing politics.

Despite the best attempts from greeting card companies around the world, there are still like 50 days out of the year that haven’t been classified as holidays. So, in an attempt to boost sales, someone at Hallmark has come up a new demographic that, in America, is second only in size to “People Who Have Birthdays.” That’s right, they’re now releasing sympathy cards designed for those who have recently been laid off.

Yes, because there’s nothing unemployed people like more than knowing their friends still have enough money to spend $5.99 on a piece of paper.

On Meet the Press today, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg weighed in on the Republican race for the presidency and whether New Jersey Governor Chris Christie would make a good candidate to go up against Barack Obama.

On Face the Nation today, the heads of the Democratic and Republican National Committees faced off on President Obama’s record on the economy and the current race to replace him in the White House.

The stagnant U.S. economy (along with high unemployment rate) have become an enormous political football of in the last year. There’s no question that there are too many people who are out of work and hurting, but both the GOP and Democrats have seemed to made more effort to lay the responsibility for a bad economy on their opposition than actually pass legislation to help. Tonight, President Barack Obama is addressing a somewhat historic joint session of Congress to reveal his plan to spur the economy.

Chris Matthews today wondered how President Obama could get reelected with such high unemployment numbers to deal with. He brought up figures during the presidencies of FDR and Ronald Reagan, both of whom were nevertheless reelected. Matthews consulted the “Matthews Meter,” twelve of The Chris Matthews Show‘s regular panelists, and all but one of them agreed the president could be reelected even if unemployment stands at 8.5 percent.

Last week, we brought you the bizarre and somewhat unsanitary news of a New Mexico state trooper who didn’t realize a surveillance camera had caught him copulating with a young lady on her vehicle (this is not a euphemism). Today, we bring you the sad news that Bert Lopez has become yet another unemployment statistic.

Today’s Morning Joe featured North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue talking about how her state is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Irene. At the end of the interview, co-host Mike Barnicle asked the governor how state unemployment might be affected by rebuilding efforts after the storm subsides.

Glenn Beck has spent most of the past week preparing his large “Restoring Courage” event in Israel, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been kept informed on the events here in America. On his program this morning, Beck parsed through the recent town hall comments by Rep. Maxine Waters, laughing at her for what he interpreted as ignoring the crowd in front of her, as well as ignoring the fact that “the President is intentionally dismantling the lower and middle class.”

In teasing The Ed Show‘s nightly “Psycho Talk” segment, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz challenged Mediaite and Politico to demand a correction from Rush Limbaugh and Fox’s Sean Hannity, presumably with the same volume we highlighted Schultz’s edit of Gov. Rick Perry‘s “big black cloud” remark. According to Schultz, Hannity and Limbaugh each recently misstated the unemployment rate that President Obama inherited from President George W. Bush. Fair enough, let’s take a look.

With bad economic news surrounding President Obama, Chris Matthews warns that if unemployment stays above 9% Obama will not be able to get re-elected. Dan Rather joined Matthews’ Sunday show panel, agreed that unemployment is the biggest concern for Obama and gave the President advice that should be listened to right away.

For most of his short career in cable news, Jimmy McMillan has been showcased alone for his auctioneer’s voice and amazingly sculpted facial hair. Now that he’s running for president, however, he’s got to learn to play well with others, and on last night’s Follow the Money McMillan had to debate Eric Bolling‘s panel, including a confused Dr. Marc Lamont Hill who didn’t understand why McMillan was attacking him for holding the same views.

June unemployment figures released this morning show unemployment rose to 9.2 percent, the highest rate since December, and analysts on CNBC were blunt: “any way you cut this data, it’s lousy.” The jobs data left the CNBC panel “stunned” and, as Rick Santelli described it, “we’re somewhere between a soft patch and a double dip.” The report dampened expectations many had about the recovery, and raised the possibility of a push for more stimulus to spur growth–and hiring.

Two months ago, a woman from Maryland became a media darling when she stood up at a town hall event and told President Obama, in no uncertain terms, that while she was once an unquestioning supporter, she had become “exhausted of defending you.” In a twisted turn of events, this morning CNBC reported that that woman—Velma Hart—had been let go from her job.

When President Obama appeared on The Daily Show Wednesday night, he made a claim that may have caused some viewers to take pause. “Most of the jobs that we lost were lost before the economic policies we put in place had any effect,” Obama told Jon Stewart. But Politifact, the St. Petersburg Times‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking operation, has taken a closer look at the President’s statement—and found that it holds up.

Last night Rachel Maddow spent her show hyping up Sharron Angle‘s first interview with the mainstream media since Angle won the Republican nomination for Nevada’s U.S. senate seat, currently held by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Considering Angle literally ran away from a reporter last week, Angle’s first post-nomination outing in the mainstream media certainly seemed promising. But Angle’s interview last night with Jon Ralston on Face to Face turned out to be not as exciting as Maddow’s comedic popcorn prop would imply

On the heels of what might be the beginning of a truce between Fox News and the Obama administration, the White House is now calling out another major news organization. Late last night, the White House’s Recovery Implementation Office released a detailed rebuttal of what it called a “misleading” report by the Associated Press. While the AP hasn’t been stripped of its legitimacy, the reaction does seem a little bit harsh.