In its ongoing effort to please their corporate controllers and Wall Street masters, the Obama administration reaches new heights of stupidity and deliberate historical ignorance.

From Adam Bink at Open Left: ".....one problem with the White House's handling of BP has been the message that is "we're in charge here, we will stop this" on one day, then "only BP can clean up the spill, they have the technology, we're powerless to stop it, no we're not going to nationalize them".

"Well, here's Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on The Kudlow Report last night:

" 'Sec. GEITHNER: We have a pro-growth agenda. Part of the agenda is growing exports. They're central to our future. What the president today is to say, that is important to the United States, we're going to be committed to making sure we're that we're expanding opportunities for American business everywhere. Now, this president understands deeply that governments don't create jobs, businesses create jobs. And our job as government is try to make sure we're creating the conditions that allow businesses to prosper so they can hire people back, get this economy going again.' "

"This echoes President Obama, as quoted in a piece by TAP's Tim Fernholz:

" 'Now, government can't create jobs, but it can help create the conditions for small businesses to grow and thrive and hire more workers," President Barack Obama said yesterday as he urged Congress to take up new jobs legislation at an event honoring Small Business Owners of the Year. 'Government can't guarantee a company's success, but it can knock down the barriers that prevent small-business owners from getting loans or investing in the future.' 

" 'The president was right, except for one little clause: the idea that government can't create jobs. Of course the government can create jobs, unless you rank police officers and teachers, or in a less Norman Rockwell-mode, DMV employees and meter readers, among the unemployed. Which, to be clear, you should not.' "

"Aside from being (a) false, as Tim points out, and (b) a conservative talking point that encourages the "if we want to create jobs, we have to lower corporate taxes and loosen regulations" line of thinking, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me that this Administration has been saying for a year and a half "our Administration's stimulus package has either saved or created x number of jobs" over and over and over again, but then stomps on its own message in a quick effort to appeal to business and Wall Street. "

Duh! How about Civil Service jobs and other government jobs?   How about the WPA, etc. during the New Deal?

Bink concludes: "And they wonder why no one in the public thinks the stimulus worked. Just a thought. "

However, while messaging is a factor, these blatantly stupid statements from Geithner and Obamaabout governments can't/not/don't create jobs are also confirmation that Obama and his crew are a completely DINO chameleons, placating big corporations and Wall Street.

As Garry Wills once wrote:  "....Obama’s strategy everywhere before entering the White House was one of omnidirectional placation. Yet success at winning acceptance may not be what is called for in a leader moving through a time of peril.

"To disarm fears of change (the first African-­American presidency is, in itself, a big jolt of change), Obama has stressed continuity. Though he first became known as a critic of the war in Iraq, he has kept aspects or offshoots of Bush’s war on terror — possible future “renditions” (kidnappings on foreign soil), trials of suspected terrorists in military tribunals, no investigations of torture, an expanded Afghan commitment, though he promised to avoid “a dumb war.” He appointed as his vice president and secretary of state people who voted for the Iraq war, and as secretary of defense and presiding generals people who conducted or defended that war. 

"To cope with the financial crisis, he turned to Messrs. Geithner, Summers and Bernanke, who were involved in fomenting the crisis. To launch reform of medical care, he huddled with the American Medical Association, big pharmaceutical companies and insurance firms, and announced that his effort had their backing (the best position to be in for stabbing purposes, which they did month after month). All these things speak to Obama’s concern with continuity and placation. But continuity easily turns into inertia, as we found when Obama wasted the first year of his term, the optimum time for getting things done.

"He may have drunk his own Kool-Aid — believing that his election could of itself usher in a post-racial, post-partisan, post-red-state and blue-state era. That is a change no one should ever have believed in..."