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President Barack Obama tried to highlight some good news and tout his economic plan Friday, but the grim reality of plunging employment and faltering stock markets once again stepped on his message.
Obama headed to hard-hit Ohio to attend a graduation ceremony for 25 Columbus, Ohio, police recruits whose jobs were saved by money from the $787 billion stimulus package he signed into law last month.
But the visit, the latest in a series of Obama road trips to push his economic plans, came as the Labor Department reported employers cut a higher than expected 651,000 jobs in February, pushing the jobless rate past 8 percent, a 25-year high.
The trip followed Thursday's plunge of more than 4 percent by major stock indexes as concerns grew about the economy and the future of some corporate giants.
Obama faces a rising tide of Republican criticism and Wall Street worries about his economic approach, with some conservative market analysts laying at least partial blame for the slide on his policies.
For the White House, the grim economic news has made it hard to find the right balance of blunt talk about the present and optimism for the future.
"As the president has often said, it's going to get worse before it gets better," spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Air Force One as Obama headed to Ohio to tout a minor victory for his plan.
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