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If you think you heard a loud cheer around 8:30 E.T. this morning, you were right. It came from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where Super Bowl weekend started early—at just about the moment when the Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate fell to 8.3 per cent in January.

Of course, once they had almost busted their lungs screaming “touchdown,” the President’s men tried to put a sober face on things. “Today’s employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression,” Alan Krueger, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, said in a blog post that was carefully modulated to avoid the appearance of gloating.