There are times when I watch President Obama when I’m forced to wonder question President Obama’s competence. I’m forced to question his competence because he hasn’t done a thing to increase entrepreneurial activity. Just as I’m certain that there’s a certain amount of incompetence involved, I’m also thinking that he won’t change directions because his ego won’t let him admit that he’s wrong.

The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes is noticing that course corrections aren’t President Obama’s strength:

Aboard Air Force One, Obama chatted amiably with Owens and Schock. Owens showed Obama two pages of a PowerPoint presentation. The first gave the details of China’s stimulus, devoted mostly to infrastructure. The second was Obama’s stimulus (drafted by congressional Democrats), with far less money going to building and repairing roads, bridges, and other projects. That was the problem, Owens told Obama: too little for infrastructure and thus too little to engage companies like Caterpillar, which had just furloughed 20,000 workers.

When Obama delivered his speech in Peoria, he either hadn’t understood what Owens told him or simply refused to accept it. The stimulus package, he said, would be “a major step forward on our path to economic recovery. And I’m not the only one who thinks so.” Owens, the president said, had told him that “if Congress passes our plan, this company will be able to rehire some of the folks who were just laid off.”

This was not only untrue, but proved to be embarrassing for Obama. After the speech, Owens talked to reporters at the foot of the podium. No, he wouldn’t be bringing back any workers. (Later, Caterpillar announced that 2,500 of the layoffs would be permanent.) Owens and Schock flew back to Washington on Air Force One. This time, Obama ignored them. There was a chill. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and adviser David Axelrod walked past Owens and Schock repeatedly to speak to the press pool in the rear of the plane. They didn’t stop to chat either.

President Obama’s behavior shows that he’s willing to ostracize people who tell the truth in disagreeing with his policies and agenda. Yes, his ego is that fragile. His conversation with Jim Owens didn’t change his stimulus bill one iota.

Now that his stimulus has failed to stimulate the economy or create jobs, President Obama understands that he’s toast if his policies are seen as failing. That’s what’s behind his Jobs Summit. His Jobs Summit isn’t a signal that he’ll change directions back towards capitalism or that he’ll admit he was wrong. It’s about him saying with his actions that he feels people’s pain and he’s doing his best.

Obama has his own theory of our current economic situation. His “first job,” he told Chuck Todd of NBC News, was to stave off another “Great Depression,” save government jobs (police, firefighters, teachers), and “make sure certain sectors of the economy were supported,” such as “construction and infrastructure.” “We’ve gotten that job done,” he said.

“Our next job is to make sure we can accelerate the job growth,” he said. ”   So what we’re seeing now is businesses are starting to invest again, they are starting to be profitable again, but they haven’t started hiring again.”

What’s the matter with these business guys? The suggestion here is they ought to be hiring. But they’re “sitting on the sidelines,” the president told Major Garrett of Fox News. He regards them as not-very-conscientious objectors, avoiding the struggle to revive the economy and put people back to work. They’re not doing their part, their duty.

Stronger words from Obama may follow. During the Depression, President Roosevelt demonized business and the wealthy (”economic royalists”) and raised their taxes. When they declined to invest and stir economic growth, he accused them of staging a “capital strike.” The Obama equivalent, if it comes to that, would be a “hiring strike.”

When GDP is revised this week, King said we should expect it to be revised downward. That’s what makes President Obama’s statement that their “next job is to make sure we can accelerate the job growth…” My question for President Obama is simple: What job growth is there to accelerate? Let’s hope that President Obama isn’t referring to the phony jobs his failed stimulus plan has supposedly saved.

President Obama has repeatedly threatened businesses, whether it was when he told a group of bankers that “My administration is the only thing between you and the pitchforks” or when he said as a candidate that people could still build coal-fired power plants if they liked, that his Cap and Tax bill would just bankrupt them.

I disagreed with President Clinton but I didn’t question the fact that he was, more or less, a capitalist. President Clinton offered proof of that by being the best free trader to occupy the Oval Office. He offered proof by knowing when to get out of the way of private industry.

President Obama and this Democratic congress keep showing us that they’d rather take companies over than establish policies that help companies create jobs. This administration hasn’t shown that they’re all that interested in capitalism. The most abundant proof they’ve shown is that they love government, big, robust, expanding government.

Early in his administration, President Obama railed that we wouldn’t return “to the failed policies of the last eight years.” If Obamanomics continues to fail at its current rate, voters will tell this administration and congressional Democrats that they’re turning away from the Obama administration’s failed policies.

Technorati: Economy, President Obama, Tax Increases, Stimulus, Unemployment, Recession, Speaker Pelosi, Democrats, President Bush, Capitalism, Republicans, Election 2010

Cross-posted at California Conservative