At first it was just an unverifiable assertion. Now it turns out to have been a case of bureaucratic ineptitude and possible fraud. Transparency and accountability aren't working out the way President Barack Obama had hoped.

The administration was already skating on thin ice when it announced on Oct. 30, with great fanfare, that 640,329 jobs had been created or saved as a result of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Not 640,000, or even 640,300. Six-hundred-forty-thousand- three- hundred-and-twenty-nine.

Asked about accumulating reports of phony jobs in phantom districts, Obama told Fox News's Major Garrett that "this is an inexact science."

Turned into an exact one by his administration, I might add.

Even Vice President Joe Biden had the good sense to round up to the nearest million, which puts the number of jobs created or saved in line with "government and private forecasters' estimates" for the Recovery Act.

Local newspapers across the country started to notice problems with the, er, jobs. Small stuff, like jobs that weren't created and congressional districts that don't exist. You have to admire the consistency.

Watchdog.org, a collection of independent journalists covering state and local government, has put together a "Guide to the Stimulus, District by (Phantom) District." Overall the group found that 440 phantom districts in 50 states, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories received $6.4 billion and created or saved -- let's consolidate to "craved" -- 30,000 jobs. That works out to $213,333 per job. Think how much easier it would have been to hand out that kind of real money to real people who will spend it!

'Misplaced decimal'

It's not only self-appointed watchdogs who have found problems with the data set. The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, issued its own report last week, citing "a range of significant reporting and quality issues that need to be addressed."

Gene Dodaro, head of the GAO, told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee he had found about 4,000 reports showing no money expended but the equivalent of 50,000 full-time jobs created.

At the same hearing, Earl Devaney, chairman of the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, said the errors could be divided into two categories: inaccurate data and noncompliance.

The first category includes things like sloppy bookkeeping, phantom districts and even a case of a "misplaced decimal," which turned a $10 million contract into a $10 billion one.

I have the same problem. That's one reason I have editors, to catch that kind of careless mistake before the public does.