No doubt you’ve heard variations on this question being posed by everyone from the members of the Congressional Black Caucus – who began lamenting openly this week that what little Obama is doing is geared towards white folks, to members of the Republican Party – who have been goading him about jobs from the day he was inaugurated.
The lamenting by black congressmen is understandable of course since blacks are Obama’s most loyal supporters, yet they are the ones who have benefited the least so far during his presidency.
The goading by Republicans however is belied by the inference that every one of them took a religious oath to oppose every job-creation policy Obama proposes.
But this hasn’t prevented Republicans from appearing all over TV ranting about the audacity of Obama flying off yesterday for a 10-day family vacation on Martha’s Vineyard instead of staying in Washington to work on another job-creation policy for them to oppose … when they return in September from the vacation members of Congress have been on since August 1.
If the above were not hypocritical enough, consider this:
The people screaming loudest for Obama to create jobs are the very Republicans, including all of the ones campaigning for his job, who preach the convenient gospel that the government does not create jobs, only the private sector does. These folks are not only two-faced; they are diabolically stupid.
Putting aside the fact that, since time immemorial, the government has been creating jobs through public works, public services, and an alphabet soup of related bureaucracies, here for the record is a concise and accurate explanation of the only role any president can play in creating jobs:
The White House doesn’t create jobs. The government together — White House, Congress — creates policies that allow for greater job creation. And that can be through tax cuts, for example, for working Americans; everyone who works pays a payroll tax. And the tax cut that this President pushed for, for one year, for this calendar year, he’s pushing for to be extended next year.
(White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, Real Clear Politics, August 4, 2011)
Nobody can deny that Obama has been dutifully playing his role from day one. The reason so many people disapprove of his job-creation efforts is that he has not done enough to call out the do-nothing, just-say-no Republicans for reflexively opposing every job-creation policy he proposes simply because they believe this is their best (and only) way to make him “a one-term president”.
He should continually remind the nation that no less a person than Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate, is on record declaring that the number one priority for Republicans in Congress is not to help create jobs, but to defeat Obama.
Meanwhile, please note the inclusion of Congress in Carney’s formulation. Because to hear Republican congressmen, you’d think the only role they have to play in creating jobs is to carp at Obama out of both sides of their mouths.
Apropos of mouths, this picture (taken at last week’s Iowa State Fair) of Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann, who is clearly Obama’s critic with the biggest mouth, might induce even a few Brothers to vote for her:
