FORTUNE – The latest jobs numbers released Friday morning were a pleasant surprise to many Americans. For the first time since President Obama took office, the unemployment rate fell below 8%, but Jack Welch, former General Electric CEO (and Fortune contributor), wasn’t at all convinced. Welch quickly took to Twitter to accuse the Obama team of manipulating the newly released numbers, following a U.S. presidential debate. “Unbelievable jobs numbers .. these Chicago guys will do anything .. can’t debate so change numbers,” he tweeted.
Welch’s tweet has gone viral, prompting plenty of others to banter about their own conspiracy theories that the jobs report is somehow manipulated. Here’s a look at a few:
Obama has hired infamous Iraqi Information Minister Baghdad Bob to calculate the unemployment rate: This was from the self-described non-partisan group, Americans for Limited Government, which released a statement saying that Friday’s unemployment report was downright unbelievable. “It appears that Obama has hired infamous Iraqi Information Minister Baghdad Bob to calculate the unemployment rate. Anyone who takes this unemployment report serious is either naïve or a paid Obama campaign adviser,” says Americans for Limited Government Communications Director Rick Manning, also former Public Affairs Chief of Staff at the U.S. Department of Labor.
Democrats lied about getting jobs: Not all agree with Welch that the numbers are cooked, but that isn’t to say they weren’t somehow manipulated. Washington Examiner writer Conn Caroll tweeted on Friday that “I don’t think BLS cooked numbers. I think a bunch of Dems lied about getting jobs. That would have the same effect.”
Obama is learning from Saul Alinsky: Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) stood by Welch, posting comments on his Facebook page that jobs numbers have been cooked and reflect manipulative tactics from the left: “This is Orwellian to say the least and representative of Saul Alinsky tactics from the book “Rules of Radicals” – a must read for all who want to know how the left strategize.”
Obama spends more time lobbying the Labor Department than campaigning: As Welch has implied, Obama tweaked the jobs numbers coming off a presidential debate. And so many in the twittersphere have wondered if the president has been spending more time lobbying the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the jobs data, than campaigning.
