What Was the Point of Obama's Press Conference?

I tuned in a few minutes late to President Obama’s press conference, but from the looks of things I didn’t miss anything. He railed against Republicans for rejecting his phony jobs bill, without acknowledging that Democrat Sen. Harry Reid is the one who is bollixing it up in the Senate. He railed against Republicans for wanting to rein in the EPA, but never acknowledged that his regulatory over reach has already provably caused layoffs and threatens to cause power shortages. He tried to describe and identify with the struggles that millions of Americans are going through in the tough economy, but never acknowledged that his own policies are at least partly to blame. He called for questions from what looked like a preformulated list of approved reporters. From the looks of the CNN liveblog, none of the questions were particularly probing and none of the answers, very insightful. When I tuned in he seemed to be trying to justify government “investments” in green companies like Solyndra, indicating that he still has not learned much from the failure and scandal now dogging his administration. This answer tells me that Obama is still more of a Tom Friedman than a Steve Jobs, on the economy and innovation:

11:32 a.m. ET – On Solyndra: We’ve got to dominate cutting edge technologies and manufacturing. Part of what’s happening is other countries are putting enormous subsidies in these companies to get them started overseas. We knew from the start the loan guarantee program was going to involve some risk. The overall portfolio has been successful. There are going to be some companies that did not work out. Solyndra was one of them…but I have confidence the decision were made based on what would be good for the American economy and getting people back to work.

Didn’t we have this same debate in the 1980s, when it looked like Honda and Toyota were set to take over the world on behalf of Japan?

And while the US auto manufacturers remained mired in Big Labor’s grip and refused to innovate to remain competitive, a little American  company called Apple innovated, went to the brink of oblivion, and then brought itself back to become the global powerhouse that it is by making products that people want, and which make lives better? And Honda and Toyota started making great cars right here in America.

We had this debate. It was settled. President Obama is living in the big government past.

I suppose the president’s point was to come out, generate some headlines and appear presidential. Two out of three ain’t bad, I guess. The latter has escaped him and gets farther from him with each speech, easily knocked down falsehood or sham bill.