RUSH: Eighty-nine million Americans are not in the labor force, 89 million Americans who are capable of working are not. There are 119,000 fewer people employed in August than in July. You might be hearing that 96,000 jobs were created. That could very well be true. They were expecting anywhere, depending on the experts, anywhere from 225 to 250,000 new jobs. They got 96,000, but a number that’s not being widely reported is that 119,000 fewer people were employed in August than in July, 119,000 people lost their jobs, while 96,000 people found jobs, so what’s the net? It’s a wash. And they were full of this 4.5 million jobs created in the last four years under Obama. The real number is 300,000.

Let’s go to the audio sound bites and listen to the Drive-Bys actually crestfallen on this. First up, Ali Velshi from CNN this morning talking with Soledad O’Brien. She said, “The key August jobs report’s just in to CNN. Ali Velshi has the numbers for us. Ali, what’s it showing out there?”

VELSHI: Not very good, Soledad. We went into this report with President Obama 316,000 jobs short of being able to say that every job lost on his watch would be recovered. If you take the 96,000 jobs we got this month for August, you add the revisions from the previous few months, he still has to make up 261,000 jobs over the next two months to get there. This is not the hopeful number that the administration and, frankly, the country was looking for. I would say that you would have to characterize this as the glass half empty, Soledad.

RUSH: Stop and think of this, now. We went into this report with Obama 316,000 jobs short of being able to say that every job lost on his watch would have been recovered. And yet we’ve been in a recovery since June of 2009. What about 4.5 million jobs created? They keep trumpeting that. Here’s Ali Velshi saying, “Well, they went into this reporting needing 316,000 jobs created just to get back to where they started, and they’re still 261,000 jobs short.” But it’s so much worse than that. It’s a crying shame what has happened to the labor market, the job market in this country. For Obama to start making fun of tax cuts and all the real solutions to this problem.

Here’s Ron Brownstein, also on CNN. Soledad O’Brien said, “Let’s talk about the political implication with the unemployment news, which is what made that number so important. What’s the impact of this, Ronald?”

BROWNSTEIN: This is not catastrophic enough to drop the bottom out from President Obama, but it’s no tailwind behind him at all, and it’s just setting us up for grinding trench welfare.

RUSH: So Ron there is trying to cheer everybody up here, but he can’t do it. It’s not catastrophic enough to dash Obama’s hopes altogether. It’s just catastrophic. But it’s not catastrophic enough. Just a little catastrophic. Somewhat catastrophic. About 10% catastrophic, but it’s not enough to derail Obama. And here’s Dana Bash also at CNN.

BASH: It’s a reminder of the history of this and that President Obama would be making history if he wins reelection in these economic times because, again, no president has won reelection with these kind of job numbers since FDR, and, remember, President Obama once, maybe twice last night hearkened back to FDR talking about the need for patience, and that was not an accident.

RUSH: Yeah. Again, you go back four years ago, “Yes, we can,” and today it’s, “Nobody could have.” “Yes, we can! Yes, we can!” Bill Clinton: (imitating Clinton) “Nobody coulda done it, with except maybe me, but that would be unfair of you to think of it that way. Yes, we can. It couldn’t have been done.”