Media pessimists are crying in their beer today, their dour, gloomy faces stricken with grief over the knowledge that, despite their best efforts, the U.S. economy refuses to buckle under and go into recession.

It's getting funny, actually. Every quarter the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) numbers come out and every quarter they show sustained growth. And every financial journalist publishes the news through gritted teeth, always adding caveats and dire predictions about the nosedive the economy will take next quarter. And so the cycle begins.

It's not just the media. Politicians are starting to look silly, too. Imagine Hillary Clinton or John Edwards on the stump today, once again bashing the economy even as third-quarter GDP numbers show the economy grew by a whopping 4.9% in the fiscal third quarter. The quarterly GDP number is the benchmark economists use to measure the relative health of the U.S. economy. How will they spin those positive numbers?

Across the board, today's news is welcoming. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, GDP increased at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the third quarter compared to the 3.8 percent growth seen in the second quarter. The GDP growth in the third quarter marked the fastest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2003, when GDP surged up 7.5 percent.

Says the Commerce report: "The acceleration in the pace of GDP growth compared to the previous quarter primarily reflected accelerations in exports, consumer spending, and private inventory investment. At the same time, an upturn in imports, a larger decrease in residential fixed investment, and a deceleration in nonresidential structures partly offset the acceleration."

The Commerce report also showed that the pace of consumer spending growth was revised up modestly to 2.8 percent from the preliminary reading of 2.7 percent growth. This represents a significant acceleration from 1.4 percent in the second quarter.

Let's play a game. How will the doomsayers twist themselves into a pretzel in spinning the rosy GDP numbers? How many "ifs", "buts" and "on the other hand" quotes will we see in todays news cycle? Or, will the Pining-for-a-Recession crowd even mention the good economy at all?

Honestly, you just can't make this stuff up . . .