Sunday NYT: obama economic team looks like "wreckage"

The notion that the White House team has been bereft of ideas on the jobs front is the focus of  a new, forthcoming Sunday’s New York Times Magazine article by reporter Peter Baker.  Baker takes a journey down the White House Rabbit Hole and writes a fascinating behind-the-scenes look into Obama and his hapless economic team.

In an advance copy obtained by the Tatler, Baker writes that three days before Christmas, Obama sits down with his economic team to pen ideas for his State of the Union speech.  Baker writes, “[H]e was looking for bold ways to bring down unemployment. The ideas presented to him, though, seemed familiar and uninspired. ‘You know, guys,’ he said, according to someone in the room, ‘I’ve told you before, I want you to come to me with ideas that EXCITE me.’ Nothing he was hearing excited him. Obama’s frustration could set the tone for the remainder of his term.”

Baker also outlines how poorly the economic “team” operated.  Talking to all Obama’s economic advisers, he writes  “was like picking through the wreckage of a messy divorce.”

So now we’re getting a peek into the best new idea that came from his economic team and EXCITES the President: today’s announcement of  a “Council on Jobs and Competitiveness.”