OPINION

Obama's Gaffe About Shovel-Ready Jobs

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All sides admit that jobs are the No. 1 issue in 2010, but only three weeks before the crucial make-or-break congressional election on Nov. 2, Obama casually admitted that his claim last year that his stimulus spending bill would create 3.5 million "shovel-ready jobs" was not true.

Fox News played six video clips from different Obama speeches bragging that his $787 billion stimulus bill would create millions of "shovel-ready jobs." Now, Obama admits that those things he talked about never existed.

He played his Democratic majority in Congress for suckers. He conned them into voting yes for the stimulus bill, while Republicans stood their ground and unanimously voted no.

Mark Shields commented, "How would you like to be a Democratic member of the House fighting for your life right now, getting hit over the head for having voted for the stimulus bill, and have the President say in the New York Times Sunday magazine, 'There's no such thing as shovel-ready projects'?"

Obama deceived his grassroots supporters the same way. He sent messages to thousands of cell phones to get them to hold 3,587 house meetings, covering all 50 states and every congressional district, so they could listen to his sales talk for the stimulus over the Internet, and then call their members of Congress to urge them to vote yes. Obama's friends performed loyally, and now they have to face the truth that the stimulus is not merely a failure. it was a fake.

Obama keeps pouring salt into his friends' political wounds. He bemoaned that he let himself look like "the same old tax-and-spend liberal Democrat." No kidding!

That's not just how he looks, it's what he is. He has saddled us with colossal debt that mortgages the future of our children and grandchildren with no end in sight.

Political pundits are trying to explain the meltdown of the Obama presidency after he entered the White House basking in what Bernard Goldberg called "the slobbering love affair" of the media and Chris Matthews called "the thrill going up my leg." But the meltdown is not caused only by the depression, the debt, the deficits, the bailouts, the unemployment, the bankruptcies, and the industry takeovers, it's caused by what Obama says and doesn't say.

Obama's ramrodding of Obamacare through Congress by peddling the narcissistic notion that we should pass it first, and then learn to love it, was a colossal failure. His 38 speeches promoting government health care failed to convince us, and we liked it less after we got a closer look.

Call the roll of Obama's remarks and actions that are downright insulting to American sensibilities and values. He bows to foreign dictators who hate us and apologizes for America at the United Nations.

He puts down American exceptionalism. He pretends we are not and don't want to be a superpower, and he belittles America's generosity in saving and rebuilding other nations that ask for help after attacks or disaster.

He attacks our deeply held religious values. He twice pretended to quote the famous lines from the Declaration of Independence but purposely and conspicuously omitted the words that our unalienable rights were given to Americans "by their Creator."

Obama has made a mantra of saying that America is a nation of "nonbelievers" as well as Muslims and other faiths. The Census Bureau's official Statistical Abstract reports that only 0.7 percent of U.S. adults are atheists.

He insulted the Boy Scouts by boycotting their 100th anniversary Jamboree in July, attended by 45,000 Scouts only a few miles from the White House. Instead, he spent that day consorting with left-wing feminists on television.

At his first State of the Union Address to Congress, he insulted the Supreme Court justices sitting in front of him. No wonder Justice Sam Alito announced he probably won't attend the State of the Union Address next year.

The American people were allowed to learn less about Obama than anyone ever elected president. We don't even know, for example, his college grades or who paid his tuition at pricey Harvard and Columbia.

The Pulitzer Prize winner Dorothy Rabinowitz expressed the belief of many Americans when she called him "the alien in the White House" (adding the caveat that this label is not even related to where Obama was born). It refers to calling himself a "citizen of the world" and the tell-tale discomfort he reveals when discussing America's greatness, values, religious traditions or exceptionalism.

It's no surprise that Democratic candidates this November are not eager to associate themselves with the president and his proposed legislation.

(For links providing further information, see www.eagleforum.org)