Pathetic: Axelrod Claims Obama 'Saved' Two Million Jobs

They cannot possibly be this obtuse, can they?

President Barack Obama's chief political adviser says the president will focus on job-creating plans in his State of the Union address Wednesday night.

Strategist David Axelrod says the White House takes only "cold comfort" from the fact that the president's stimulus program saved about 2 million jobs — given the millions lost in the deepest economic downturn in decades.

So millions of jobs have been lost, yet Obama somehow magically "saved" two million? There's no evidence to support such an assertion and it's a glaring sign this administration refuses to deal with the reality that their economic policy is a mess, the stimulus hasn't worked, unemployment continues to rise, Obama's approval rating continues to plummet and they show no visible signs of getting the message.

It's as if they're taking advice from Frank Rich, who deludes himself into believing how He Who Walks on Water has nothing to do with the Massachusetts debacle.

It was not a referendum on Barack Obama, who in every poll remains one of the most popular politicians in America. It was not a rejection of universal health care, which Massachusetts mandated (with Scott Brown’s State Senate vote) in 2006. It was not a harbinger of a resurgent G.O.P., whose numbers remain in the toilet. Brown had the good sense not to identify himself as a Republican in either his campaign advertising or his victory speech.

In one paragraph Rich proves he's surely cut out for a job as a White House flack or, failing that, we may have found Ellie Light.

Memo to Rich: When 24% of the public strongly approves of the job you're doing, you're no longer very popular. Rich, naturally, fails to link to "every poll" where Obama remains so awesomely awesome. As for his assertion that GOP numbers are in the toilet, how does one explain their eight-point lead on the generic Congressional ballot? I suppose of the GOP numbers are in the toilet, then the Democrat number are already in the septic tank. For God's sake, Obama is already losing a matchup with Mike Huckabee, a 2008 GOP also-ran. Internally, the Democrats have to realize following Obama down the path of economic doom cannot auger well come November. And they can't possible be so naive as to take anything Frank Rich says seriously.

Can they?

It remains to be seen whether Obama is going to follow Rich’s advice, and more important, whether anyone on the ballot in 2010 will be dim enough to do so as well. Republicans can dream that Democrats will plunge over the political cliff, but they shouldn’t count on it. Unlike New York Times columnists, members of Congress get out now and then, read local press, and pay attention to polls. Their future depends on it. And when they do, they might realize that the problem is not too little leftism, but too much, and not too little political demagoguery, but too much.

Update: The idiocy actually gets worse.

White House advisers appearing on the Sunday talk shows gave three different estimates of how many jobs could be credited to President Obama’s Recovery Act.

The discrepancy was pointed out by a Republican official in an email to reporters noting that “Three presidential advisers on three different programs [gave] three different descriptions of the trillion-dollar stimulus bill.”

Valerie Jarrett had the most conservative count, saying “the Recovery Act saved thousands and thousands of jobs,” while David Axelrod gave the bill the most credit, saying it has “created more than – or saved more than 2 million jobs.” Press Secretary Robert Gibbs came in between them, saying the plan had “saved or created 1.5 million jobs.”

Via Hot Air.