We Don't Need a Speech. We Need Jobs

Posted by Erick Erickson (Profile)
Thursday, September 1st at 4:45AM EDT

President Obama and Speaker Boehner have agreed that the President will address a joint session of the Congress next Thursday. The President wanted Wednesday during the GOP debate, but John Boehner said no. Folks at the White House said the Speaker had been consulted before they put it in writing and did not object. Speaker Boehner’s staff say he was not consulted prior to receiving the President’s request. It doesn’t really matter. People are beyond tired of speeches from Washington.

As the President addresses the nation, Arizona will face off against Oklahoma for a college football game and the NFL regular season will start.

The President had two years with his party controlling the White House, the House of Representatives, and the Senate. They managed to pass a stimulus bill that, by 2010, was such a dismal disaster the President would not even use the word “stimulus.” Remember that press conference?

The Democrats then pivoted to health care claiming it was about entitlement reform and related to jobs.

Every time the President has pivoted to jobs a funny thing has happened — we’ve wound up losing more jobs.

How many mulligans will we give our golfer-in-chief?

In early 1992, facing a struggling economy and an increasingly tough re-election bid, President George H. W. Bush decided to give a talk from the White House about the economy and his jobs plan. The media largely refused to carry it because it was, in their eyes, a campaign event.

In August of 2011, President Obama toured the nation in a campaign event paid for 100% by American taxpayers out of the federal treasury. Now in September of 2011, the President intends to take his campaign road show to the floor of the United States House of Representatives.

He first tried to do it on a Wednesday night, which would have disrupted the GOP debate. Back in 2009, when Dick Cheney decided to speak at AEI, President Obama decided to have a press conference to try to step on Cheney. This is par for the course.

Well, for those of you who believe in karma, on Thursday night President Obama is going to get stepped on by the millions of Americans who don’t want another speech, just a job. And until they get one, they’ll at least distract themselves with football instead of Captain Bull Malarkey and 24th and a half jobs plan.