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“Obama Pivots to Income Inequality,” John Hinderaker wrote at Power Line yesterday noting that the president “announced to an audience at the far-left Center for American Progress that he will spend the remainder of his term in office focusing on income inequality.”
Which seems odd, because the day before, NBC Nightly News tweeted that “Pres. Obama vows to spend the remainder of his presidency making his health care reform plan work. @ChuckTodd reports now.”
And concurrently, “Biden’s Trip Is Not Enough to Save Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia,'” US News & World Report, err, reported yesterday. That’s more pivots than Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers ever attempted on the dance floor. (And Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” is going about as well as all of his other pivots.)
Add all of those pivots — just in the past couple of days — to previous pivots such as these:
● “Weekly addresses: GOP sticks to health care, Obama pivots to the economy.”
— Headline, CNN, November 23, 2013.
● “Dealing with health care woes, Obama pivots to the economy.”
— Headline, CBS News, November 6, 2013
● “Good news: Obama pivoting again to the economy”
— Headline, Hot Air, September 12, 2013.
Back in February, the Washington Examiner rounded up these earlier pivots:
Obama to pivot back to the economy (Washington Post, February 10, 2013)
President Obama pivots to jobs — and dares GOP to follow (Politico, September 8, 2011)
After bruising debt battle, Obama pivots to jobs agenda (Agence France Presse, August 3, 2011)
Obama pivots to pocketbook (Baltimore Sun, May 7, 2011)
Obama pivots to job creation (San Francisco Chronicle, January 28, 2010)
Obama pivots to the economy and jobs (Christian Science Monitor, January 8, 2010)
In July of this year, Selena Zito of the Pittsburgh Tribune estimated on Twitter that “My unofficial count has this Obama ‘pivot on jobs’ speech his 19th ‘pivot’ since taking office. Today he will blame Washington & Republicans.”
As MSNBC’s Chuck Todd said at the time, “This speech, this pivot – pivot to the economy, again it’s like déjà pivot I have when it comes to the economy.” And the pivots go on and on.
As does the boilerplate:
As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile, and payroll employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.
— “The Employment Situation in October,” Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, White House.gov, November 8th, 2013.
As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile, and payroll employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.
— “The Employment Situation in September,” Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, White House.gov, October 22nd, 2013.
As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile, and payroll employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.
— “The Employment Situation in August,” Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, White House.gov, September 6th, 2013.
As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile, and payroll employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.
— “The Employment Situation in July,” Alan Krueger, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, White House.gov, August 2, 2013.
As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile, and payroll employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.
— “The Employment Situation in June,” Alan Krueger, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, White House.gov, July 5th, 2013.
As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile, and payroll employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.
— “The Employment Situation in May,” Alan Krueger, Former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, White House.gov, June 7, 2013.
Ad nauseam, all the way back to at least November of 2009 — or as Scott Johnson of Power Line noted in July of last year, “the Obama administration has been encouraging Americans not to read too much into the monthly jobs report now for three years. After 41 straight months of unemployment over 8 percent, it may be time to start reading something into these reports.”
Now that winter is upon us, wouldn’t it be easier for the administration to simply pivot into the rec room of the Overlook Hotel, borrow their manual Underwood typewriter, and just start typing “All Work and No Play Make Jack a Dull Boy” ad infinitum?
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