Obama said, of that trade provision,

"At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we've seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there."

So, it's not only acceptable, but worthy of delaying a golf game, to celebrate the passage of a bill which will add costs to American companies trying to claw their way out of this recession, but we don't want to do anything which would level the playing field with our trading partners.

At the Republican National Convention in 1984, Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick coined two phrases which should be dusted off today. One was to identify the Democratic Party - which was virulently anti-Reagan - as "San Francisco Democrats."

Given the home district of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, this phrase has new currency.

The second was when she said that the hallmark of those San Francisco Democrats was their propensity to "Blame America first."

The provisions of this climate change bill will place great hardships on the very manufacturers we are spending hundreds of billions of dollars trying to prop up so they will begin rehiring American workers.

But President Obama seems to be more worried about hardships these same provisions would put on foreign manufactures. Wouldn't allowing them to ignore this cap-and-trade business lead to even more jobs moving off-shore?

Obama has taken the Kilpatrick criticism to a new level. He is the official leader of the "Penalize America First" crowd.