During the Christmas break, we were told that President Obama would pivot to focus on jobs. Considering the fact that people are giving him grief because his policies have failed, it’s surprising that President Obama is still obsessing over health care. According to Sam Stein’s post, President Obama won’t take reconciliation off the table:

President Obama wants to keep the option of using reconciliation to pass health care reform despite calls from Republican lawmakers that he agree to drop the parliamentary maneuver as a “good faith” gesture” before their bipartisan health care summit.

The health care issue isn’t a winner for President Obama or congressional Democrats, with 49 percent trusting Republicans most on the issue, with only 37 percent of people polled trusting Democrats more.

Setting that aside, though, the reality is that the American people want President Obama focusing on the economy.

This is, in my opinion, sloppy messaging control by the Obama administration. At this point, I haven’t seen proof that they know how to sell their legislative initiatives. They wouldn’t have passed the stimulus bill without their oversized majorities and the utter secrecy of the process.

Another issue that they’re gettin hammered on is Mirandizing Nigerian terrorist Abdulmutallab. This time, Dana Perino gets to do some of the hammering:

The administration has spent the past two weeks telling anyone who will listen, including our enemies overseas (whom Abdulmutallab apparently is flipping on), that Abdulmutallab’s family convinced him to start cooperating six weeks after he was Mirandized. Indeed, this is when Brennan himself writes that “[t]he most important breakthrough occurred.” How, then, could Abdulmutallab have been “thoroughly interrogated” immediately after he was arrested if “the most important breakthrough” came six weeks later, and only after his family intervened? This glaring contradiction goes unaddressed.

Each day that Abdulmutallab is that day’s headlines, it’s a terrible day for the administration. What’s more is that the Obama administration only has itself to blame for it being a disastrous day.

Putting it as bluntly as I know how, their messaging team is pathetic. If this administration’s team worked for a Fortune 500 company, they’d be fired in half a heartbeat, if not faster.

What group of idiots would let the administration’s message for this week be anything but focusing on jobs? An effective chief of staff and a competent communications director would put the word out that this week’s message centered on 3 things: jobs, jobs and jobs. They’d also put the word out that anyone talking about health care or Abdulmutallab will be humiliated, then fired.

Wherever you look in this administration, incompetence is all that’s seen. The economic team is a disaster. The national security team is incompetent because they think terrorists shouldn’t be interrogated until after they’ve been given constitutional protections. The foreign policy team is a disaster, too, especially considering their abandoning traditional allies like Israel, the British and Poland while cozying up to Russia, China and Iran.

That’s what happens when you send a toy messiah to do a man’s job.

Technorati: Terrorism, John Brennan, Abdulmutallab, Interrogations, Miranda Rights, Health Care, Reconciliation, President Obama, Economy, Stimulus, Unemployment, Democrats

Cross-posted at California Conservative