President Obama will hold a press conference today at 11 am EST to take questions about his jobs plan that was rejected by democrats, as Guy reported earlier this week.
The entire point of Obama's antagonistic performance before the joint session of Congress last month was to convince the American people that he's doing something about the nation's chronic unemployment rate (which is forecasted to decay, then hold through next year, by the way), and to cast Republicans as a pack of intractable do-nothings. The White House's political calculus was straightforward: Obama offers a plan (the details of which are almost immaterial), Harry Reid's Senate votes on it (best case scenario: Republicans filibuster), and House Republicans refuse to take up the bill (or, even better, defeat it). When that tableau played out, Obama's spinmeisters plotted, Obama would pounce on the GOP's inaction and browbeat them at campaign stops in "every corner of this country." As I wrote at the time, the purpose of the speech was not to introduce a jobs-creation plan; it was to deploy a job-preservation strategy for himself.
But the brilliant ploy has hit a snag: Congressional Democrats aren't cooperating. Numerous vulnerable Democrats have balked at the plan, forcing Senate Democratic leadership to concede that they don't have the votes within their own caucus to pass the bill. Even better, the White House's top legislative priority has exactly zero co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.
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Other topics most likely to be addressed during the presser include the war in Afghanistan, his 2012 re-election campaign and demonizing evil republicans.
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