Does 2.2 equal 7?

An interesting pair of factoids in an article entitled Whack Job in The New Republic Online caught my attention today. First the writer quotes Senator John Kerry on job creation during the economic recovery:

I think when you're seven million jobs in the hole, step number one is pretty simple: stop digging.

Later the writer observes that:

Of course, the economy has actually lost, on net, many more jobs than [between a million and a million-and-a-half] since 2000--some 2.2 million according to the Labor Department's payroll survey, historically the most reliable measure of employment.

The "7 million jobs in the hole" quote is still available at the John Kerry for President website. Assuming that the Labor Department is correct, where the heck is Senator Kerry getting 7 million from? Until I figure out where Bush claimed to add 4 million jobs to the economy with his tax cuts, one possible way of getting a figure of 8 million jobs "in the hole" (along with a convenient debunking) has already been blogged by Donald Luskin here.