Unemployment rose to 9.9 percent in the latest reports, and the mainstream media is going to comical lengths to soften the blow for Barack Obama. Here’s The News & Observer‘s screaming print headline this morning: Job surge beats outlook.

In a story from the Tribune Washington Bureau, the lead tells us:

WASHINGTON — U.S. employers added an unexpectedly large number of jobs in April, the strongest hiring burst in four years. The 290,000 jobs were a welcome signal that companies are becoming more confident that the economy will continue to strengthen.

The second paragraph is even more giddy:

Even more good news: The Labor Department also revised upward its tally of payrolls in February and March. It said Friday that the economy added 230,000 jobs in March, up from 162,000 previously estimated, and that employers created 39,000 jobs in February instead of cutting 14,000 positions. All told, payroll jobs have increased 573,000 in the first four months of this year.

It’s not until the third paragraph that you see this:

The less-good news: The government reported an uptick in the unemployment rate – to 9.9 percent from 9.7 percent in the first three months of this year. Most analysts didn’t see that coming either, but they didn’t view the increase as a sign of worsening conditions. Rather, they said it reflected the fact that many more out-of-work people, seeing better employment prospects, are rejoining the labor market.

Note that the reporter, Don Lee, can’t even bring himself to say “bad news,” he has to resort to the contortion of “less-good.” And he couldn’t bring himself to say “increase,” resorting to “uptick.” But “strong,” “burst,” and the ever-present “unexpectedly” are salted liberally through the story.

This happened a lot during the Bush administration, I’m sure you remember. On the contrary. Recall, if you will, the calamitous “R-word” stories that accompanied every indication that Christmas buying “only increased” by 2 or 3 percent. Now we have actual downward indicators, the most important ones, camouflaged by the media with spurious indicators, like the “surge” in hiring as a result of all the ACORN workers getting census enumerator jobs.

Is there a special thesaurus that mainstream media reporters use when a Democrat is in office?

UPDATE: U.S. News & World Reports gets in on the Obama rear-kissing and unemployment-is-good spin:

It sounds dreadful. After drifting down consistently since last fall, the unemployment rate has suddenly shot up again, from 9.7 percent in March to 9.9 percent in April. But don’t despair: A rising unemployment rate is actually one of the best signs yet that the economy is bouncing back.