Summit theater hard to stomach

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Evan Newmark is really bugged about Obama's jobs summit: Mean Street: The Sham of a Mockery of an Obama Jobs Summit. (Faithful readers will note that I called it a sham yesterday.)

What is it about Thursday’s White House “jobs summit” that rubs me the wrong way?

All presidents engage in these sorts of elaborate PR stunts. Why not just dismiss it as another meaningless piece of Washington political theater?

I should. But I can’t. And that’s because this jobs summit seems an unusually pointless and cynical waste of time.

Obamanomics — the White House’s jumble of industrial policy, massive deficit spending and tax hikes — isn’t working.

There are now 15.7 million Americans without jobs. And a big White House conference on jobs is nothing more than a soft distraction from those hard facts.

Now, I’ve never been to a White House summit, so I can’t say exactly what will happen on Thursday. But as a past Davos World Economic Forum participant, I’m pretty familiar with these kinds of VIP schmooze and snoozefests.

And here’s how it will likely play out. A senior White House official — perhaps the president — will give a welcome pep talk to the 130 gathered “summiteers.” He’ll ply them with thanks and stirring patriotic words.

But then he’ll urge them to not waste the day in conference fuzzy talk. Instead, the summiteers should turn words into actions and actions into jobs. After all, it is a “jobs” summit.

And then the summiteers will shuffle off to one of six working groups — where of course they’ll end up wasting the day in conference fuzzy talk. [. . .]

But the White House knows this. And it knows that it really doesn’t matter. This jobs summit isn’t meant to be a “real” jobs summit.

A “real” jobs summit would focus on how American businesses can win globally. A “real” jobs summit would consider why Texas can compete for jobs and California can’t. A “real” jobs summit would look at permanent corporate and payroll tax cuts. And a “real” jobs summit would actually embrace debate, not stifle it. [. . .]

At the end of the day, the President will stand up, thank everyone and close the jobs summit by declaring it a “success”.

And then everyone will file out of the White House and go back to their regular jobs, having done little to nothing on December 3rd to create any new ones.

And Obama will head off on his "Main Street" tour and talk about how bad unemployment is.

What really bugs me about this charade is that people are actually out of work and hurting and Obama's policies are counterproductive. His sham summit and rallies just add insult to injury.

*Added:

Not that it matters, but it was just a couple of weeks ago that the WH said this summit would not be about creating jobs. That would put too much pressure on participants.

Just for a laugh cast your mind back on the Fiscal Responsibility Summit, another joke at our expense.

See Jason Zengerle on Why Obama is Obsessed with Summits.

Groan. I just checked out the summit here and caught Obama talking about "getting to work" and "finding which ideas make the most sense." Farcical. I'm surprised he wasn't physically rolling up his sleeves.

Linked at Michelle Malkin (buzzworthy)

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