A media meme has developed about the economy and the 2012 election: if Barack Obama gets the unemployment rate at or below 8 percent, he will be well positioned to win reelection. To that end, the press greeted last Friday’s jobs report (the addition of 216,000 jobs, and unemployment falling to 8.8 percent) as though it was the first sunbeam of Morning in America, Version 2.0.

 As usual, we can head to the New York Times for the spin: