This pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?
In case it doesn’t, here’s Steve Benen:

To put last month’s numbers in the larger context, since the recession began two years ago this month, the single “best” month for the job market was January 2008, when the economy shed 72,000 jobs. Last month, then, was easily the best month since the start of the recession.

Of course, losing any jobs is bad news, and it’s hard to smile too much with 23 consecutive months in which the economy has lost jobs. To get back to a healthy employment landscape, the economy is going to have to not just climb back above 0, but also start creating about 140,000 jobs per month. We’re quite a ways from that level.

But today’s news is nevertheless the most encouraging we’ve seen in a long time. The unemployment rate has dropped, and the monthly report far exceeded expectations.

Do Republicans read?

I ask that seriously. The past few days, with the president focused on his White House jobs summit, GOPers have targeted their anti-Obama crusade on the president’s economic record. And their number-one talking point has been this: Obama’s stimulus stinks. Some examples:

– In a speech at the Heritage Foundation, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor decried the “failure” of Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package.

– Talk show agitator Glenn Beck huffed that “jobs are not being saved or created.”

– Sarah Palin tweeted, “Baffling/nonsensical:Obama’s talk of yet another debt-ridden ‘stimulus’ pkg.Fight this 1, America, bc after last 1 unemployment rose,debt grew.” (Palin apparently doesn’t put spaces between sentences to fit in more characters.) …

There are policy debates to be had regarding Obama’s stimulus package. But this particular GOP attack is utterly disingenuous. It’s a lie.

As Republicans have been claiming the stimulus has done nothing to protect or preserve jobs, the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan research outfit, this week released a report on the impact of the stimulus that says exactly the opposite. This is not spin. Here’s the relevant portion:

CBO estimates that in the third quarter of calendar year 2009, an additional 600,000 to 1.6 million people were employed in the United States, and real (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product (GDP) was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than would have been the case in the absence of ARRA. Those ranges are intended to encompass most economists’ views and to reflect the uncertainty involved in such estimates.