Papers and media outlets across the nation (let alone the plummeting stock market) recognized the job numbers that were released on Friday as being appallingly weak. Not the Los Angeles Times, however. The paper covered the story under this headline: "Mitt Romney dismisses improved job figures" 

Mitt Romney, who has long staked his presidential bid on his business experience, painted a rosy picture of his definition of a successful economy on Friday, arguing that the unemployment rate should be cheered only if it is below 4%, and arguing that half a million new jobs should be created every month in a true economic recovery.

Those sorts of economic conditions have rarely existed in recent American history. But when Romney made his remarks in response to a new jobs report that unemployment had dipped to 8.1% and the economy added 115,000 jobs last month, they were just the latest chapter in the harsh critique that Romney has hammered throughout the campaign.

Though the president did not create the recession, Romney often argues, he has stunted the growth of small businesses and jobs by creating a regulatory maze with his healthcare program and shepherding through an ineffectual stimulus program that added to the nation's mounting debt.

On Friday, Romney repeated his view that the president should not take credit for any dip in joblessness when the unemployment rate remains at 8.1%.

"We should be seeing numbers in the 500,000 jobs created per month. This is way, way, way off from what should happen in a normal recovery," Romney said during a morning appearance on "Fox and Friends."

Liberal groups immediately leapt in to defend President Obama's economic record and suggested that Romney was setting the bar too high. In the last 50 years, there have been four months where 500,000 or more jobs were created, according to Think Progress, an arm of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress.

Not only did  the Los Angeles Times characterizes them as "improved" but slams Romney by writing that he "dismisses " them. In the paper's view, he is the one who engages in unreality.  The "dip" in the unemployment rate is solely due to a massive drop in the number of people so discouraged by the prospects of landing a job they have left the work force. The labor participation rate is at historic lows. The 115,000 added jobs were far below predictions and cast serious doubts on the strength of the economy.

But in the view of Seema Mehta and the editors at the Los Angeles Times, Romney is the one trying to create an imaginary view.

No wonder that state is so blue-not just in the political sense. Clearly one of the main reasons it has become an economic basket case was because of politicians being elected by voters misinformed by its liberal media outlets.