Two economists pushed back Sunday against the conspiracy that President Barack Obama's administration manipulated the Labor Department's monthly jobs numbers to show a huge drop in the unemployment rate.

"The numbers were collected in a professional way. It's the same procedures used every month," former John McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said on CNN's "State of the Union. "It's a statical anomaly, not a conspiracy."

Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Analytics, agreed.

"It's silly, counterproductive," he said.