The Obama White House: An Imitation Of Saturday Night Live?

In what could easily pass as a rather unfunny attempt at comedy, the Obama White House, after demanding and getting $800 billion ten months ago to stimulate the economy, has now, with unemployment passing 10% and rising, decided to convene a “summit” of business leaders and others to try to figure out how to create jobs.

ABC News reports this morning:

“The president’s really looking forward to having a wide cross section of people from small, medium and lagre businesses,” senior White House adviser Valerie Jarrett told “Good Morning America’s” Robin Roberts today. “All coming together and working with him and his economic team to see if we can come up with some new, fresh ideas to help jumpstart the economy.”

….

“We inherited an economic meltdown 10 months ago when he took office. He moved boldly to get us back on track with a variety of measures. We still have an unemployment rate that is far too high,” Jarrett said. “He thinks today is a great opportunity to bring in new fresh ideas.”

Let’s leave aside the notion that some might think the time to figure out how to create jobs is before you spend $800 billion in a so-far largely futile attempt. Fresh new ideas on job creation are certainly needed now, and we should be encouraged that the president is reaching out to job creators for suggestions. Shouldn’t we?

Well, no. In a thin-skinned huff, the representatives of the largest job creators weren’t invited.

… President Obama is hosting a “jobs summit” at the White House Thursday that will be packed with business leaders and economists supportive of White House policies but lacks a diversity of opinion, several analysts say.

Missing from a partial list of attendees released by the White House are the self-proclaimed voices of business — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business – both of which have been critical of Mr. Obama’s proposed health care overhaul.

So, who’s included in that “wide cross section” spoken of by Valerie Jarrett? Such well-known creators of private sector jobs as … SEIU and the American Federation of Teachers.

Several attendees are labor leaders whose political action committees contributed impressive amounts to Obama’s war chest, including one group that gave nearly $29.5 million.

Anna Burger of Change to Win, who is invited to attend the forum, is secretary treasurer of Service Employees International Union Committee on Political Education, or SEIU COPE, a political action committee that gave $29,442,016 to Obama between February 2008 and September 2009. Burger gave Obama $750 in personal contributions.

American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten will also be at the summit. The AFT, along with the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education, gave Obama $1,997,375 in October 2008. And the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union, which donated $673,309 to Obama from February to October 2008, will also be represented at the forum.

Well, I said it wasn’t funny.

Continuing in its unfunny comedic vein, on a day when the Secretary of State and assorted generals, admirals, and others were on Capitol Hill testifying about important matters of state, defense, the war against terrorism Muslim-made disasters or whatever terrorism is called these days, the New York Times reported (playing the straight man to the president’s stand up comedy) that President Obama claimed executive privilege and refused to allow his social secretary — his social secretary! — to testify about procedures (or lack of them) for admitting various and sundry unauthorized people to the White House.

The White House on Wednesday invoked the separation of powers to keep Desiree Rogers, President Obama’s social secretary, from testifying on Capitol Hill about how a couple of aspiring reality television show celebrities crashed a state dinner for the prime minister of India last week.

Perhaps someone was afraid that she would be asked how many times Bill Ayers, Rev. Wright, or other terrorist sympathizers had visited the White House.

ADDENDUM

I inadvertently left out another major uninvitee:

Administration officials have excluded major trade associations from the summit, including the National Association of Manufacturers….

Couldn’t Jan Leno or Jon Stewart or somebody make a good joke out of the White House hosting a “jobs summit” but excluding representatives of most of those who create jobs while inviting all itsunion friends, who don’t?

Maybe there’s no need; it’s already a joke.

ADDENDUM II

According to White House records, SEIU president Andy Stern has visited the White House more than any other individual. If the SEIU has any “new, fresh ideas to help jumpstart the economy” that it withheld from the president all those times, he should be barred from future visits.

Say What? (1)

  1. dchamil December 4, 2009 at 10:36 am | | Reply

    Blogger Rosenberg is trying to catch up to reality, which keeps outstripping our attempts at sarcasm and parody!

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