Not political, just cool... Obama already knows the unemployment number.

[cthulu2016]

Was just reminded by the TV machine that the normal procedure, for all presidents, is that the president gets the monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics employment report late Thursday afternoon, before the monthly Friday morning public release.

The report being secret until exactly 730 am (or 8am?) on Friday is a very serious thing because it moves a lot of money in markets. The business channels get it a tiny bit early, embargoed to the moment of release, and look at a clock waiting for the second to blurt it out.

I find this interesting on a non-political level. It's just a cool human thing. Though on a less dramatic level, it's like JFK's few public appearances during the Cuban Missile Crisis before it was public there was a crisis, or Obama at the WH Correspondent's Dinner while the Bin Laden mission was already ordered.

(For the record, I don't think anyone can tell anything from anything. All presidents have so many secrets that they compartmentalize well. And it would not surprise me, Obama being Obama, if he told the Secretary to hold onto it until after the speech, unless it seemed like something so dramatic that a president would have a reason to know immediately. It's a distraction.)

[longship]

1. Like your conclusions.

There's no way to tell if you're correct, unfortunately.

R&K

[rfranklin]

2. Of course, if he's smiling like the Enzite guy, we might be able to draw a conclusion....

I am thinking it is going to be a phenomenal number.

[cthulu2016]

5. Ah... but he wouldn't want to be criticized for that

Bending over backward to be somber is just as likely as appearing happy.

That's why I think such things would be so difficult to divine... to guess the datum you have to first know how somebody feels about the datum and then know their philosophy of how to hide their feelings, and even to know whether they are trying to hide them or not.

Spouses can get to that level of familiarity, but for a celebrity on TV I've never even met?

[rfranklin]

6. You are way too somber...

and I'm high on Enzite!

[regnaD kciN]

3. We might get some hints from the speech...

If the numbers are strong, look for more emphasis on how "we turned the economy around, and it's on its way up." If weak, we'll probably hear relatively little of that, and more about the President's determination to take further steps to reduce unemployment, plus blaming the G.O.P. for obstructing his proposals. I doubt you'll be hearing a lot of touting our efforts resuting in unemployment being reduced if President Obama knows that bad news will be hitting the wires the next morning.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. And I think they are good.

Look at where the Dow closed today... the highest number since... just a sneaky, they expect good numbers, which sucks to be a Republican in this case.