At the beginning of 2004, President Bush made the bold statement that the economy would create somewhere in the neighborhood of 2.6 Million jobs. When only 100,000 or so jobs were created last January, naysayers scoffed at the claim and said that there was no way we'd even come close to that number.

Who's laughing now, when it has become apparent that Bush's original figure was not that far off the mark.

Employers added 2.2 million jobs in 2004, the first annual increase in payrolls since before the 2001 recession and a turning point for the nation's labor market after three years of job losses. [...]

At the recent low-point for the job count, in August 2003, the nation had 2.7 million fewer jobs than on the eve of the recession. By last month, that deficit had been shaved to 122,000. That gap could be fully erased by the end of this month, according to many forecasts, thwarting Democrats' prediction during the presidential campaign that Bush would be the first U.S. president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net national job loss in one term.

Keep in mind that the final revised figures haven't been released yet, and the projections tend to be understated.

UPDATE: I'm not the only one who noticed this. Larry Kudlow offers more excellent commentary.