WASHINGTON, Oct 13 (AFP) - Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry accused the Bush administration Wednesday of "callous disregard" for America's unemployed after a cabinet member reportedly dismissed the net loss of jobs as "myths."
The campaign jumped on a report in a community newspaper in the key midwestern of state of Ohio that quoted Treasury Secretary John Snow as defending President George W. Bush's record on jobs at a local barbecue on Tuesday.
"Claims like the one that Bush will be the first president to end a term with fewer jobs than when he started are nothing more than 'myths,' Snow claimed," wrote the 24,000-circulation Findlay Courier.
Snow said he was misquoted.
But as Kerry prepared for his third and final debate with Bush later Wednesday, with the focus on domestic issues, the Democrats went into overdrive with a flurry of reactions to Snow's reported statement and a planned television advertisement.
"These comments reflect the callous disregard this administration has shown for the millions of people who are out of work and seen their quality of life suffer over the last four years," Kerry said.
"It reflects the degree to which the White House tries to spin its way out of the problems facing working America when it should be focusing on solutions," the Massachusetts senator said in a statement.
"President Bush will have to answer directly tonight for this outrageous slap in the face to America's middle class. He'll also have to answer for the worst jobs record since Herbert Hoover" more than 70 years ago.
Kerry has made the net loss of more than 800,000 jobs since Bush took a office a centerpiece of his campaign to oust the Republican from the White House in the hotly contested November 2 election.
His running mate Senator John Edwards, campaigning in the northwestern state of Oregon, picked up on the "myth" theme in a ferocious broadside at the White House on a range of issues.
"Five million Americans who have lost their health care coverage in the past three years, I wonder if that's a myth," he said. "The four million Americans who have fallen into poverty in the last four years, I wonder if that's a myth."
Snow appeared on CNN and denied that he ever said the net loss of jobs was a "myth," adding, "We know that jobs have been lost."
"The president inherited an economy in a steep decline. He inherited a stock market that was melting down. And then we faced 9-11. All of that had a devastating effect on the economy, on growth and on jobs," Snow said.
The treasury secretary said that according to a survey conducted among US households, 3.2 million jobs were created during Bush's term. He also hailed the creation of nearly two million jobs in the last 13 months.
He said the administration was "on the right path," and "charges that the president's record is the worst in decades on job creation is simply not credible. It has no factual foundation."
But he made no direct reference to the Labor Department's payroll survey, generally considered the most reliable measure, which showed 2.6 million jobs lost from January 2001 to August 2003 and 1.8 million gained back since.
John Graber, 33, the author of the Findlay Courier article, declined to supply the full quote for Snow's "myths" comment but insisted: "The Courier stands by what it has reported here and we feel it was put in proper context."
Graber, a reporter for six years, said he received a call from the Treasury Department asking him to clarify Snow's remarks, made to 850 people at the Hancock County Republican Barbecue in northeastern Ohio. He stood by the story.
Snow did not back off from other comments reported in the Findlay Courier that the projected 5.4 trillion dollar budget surplus Bush inherited from the Clinton administration and allegedly squandered was nothing more than a "mirage."
"It was an estimate that wasn't borne out by the facts," he told CNN.