Obama: Asia Trip a Jobs Mission?

Did you know the purpose of Obama's 10-day trip to Asia is to create jobs here at home?

That's how the administration is spinning the extravaganza after his "thumping" at the polls on Tuesday.

From the New York Times:

Talk about bad timing.

Just days after American voters sent President Obama a blunt and angry message about their desire to see him do more to fix the economy, Mr. Obama is heading overseas this morning on a 10-day foreign trip to Asia.

The president will go to India, Indonesia, South Korea and Japan on a mission that will involve issues of global security, international trade and economics, improving cultural ties, preventing terrorism and some personal diplomacy. He will dine with foreign leaders, give a speech about Muslim outreach and attend summits on global finance.

But in the days since the midterm elections this week, Mr. Obama and his senior aides have found a much more simple way to describe the purpose of the trip.

It’s about American jobs, they say.

“The primary purpose is to take a bunch of U.S. companies and open up markets so that we can sell in Asia, in some of the fastest-growing markets in the world, and we can create jobs here in the United States of America,” Mr. Obama told his cabinet Thursday, with the cameras rolling.

“My hope is, is that we’ve got some specific announcements that show the connection between what we’re doing overseas and what happens here at home when it comes to job growth and economic growth,” he said.

Yeah, right.

Suddenly, the wildly excessive and expensive trip is a jobs mission. Even the New York Times has trouble swallowing that.

...The simplified focus on jobs as a primary purpose of the Asia trip is no accident. More than 60 percent of the voters on Tuesday told exit pollsters that the economy was their number one issue. They said repeatedly that their anger was the result of a feeling that Washington had not focused on improving the faltering economy.

Only the blindest Obama followers and most loyal apologists will buy this recasting of the Asian trip as a jobs mission.

Come on.

...The danger for Mr. Obama politically is that the images Americans will see coming from coverage of the foreign trip are not likely to clearly convey a focus on jobs in the American heartland.

Typically, such trips are filled with official pageantry and scenes that look more foreign than familiar. Indonesia, in particular, will be a challenge for the president’s message-makers. He plans to visit a mosque and will deliver a speech to what officials believe will be a very large crowd.

Ben Rhodes, the president’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, told reporters that Mr. Obama will speak about “democracy and development and our outreach to Muslim communities around the world, while also speaking of Indonesia’s pluralism and tolerance as well.”

Not exactly the kind of speech that is easy to connect to job creation in Ohio or Michigan or Missouri.

Why insult us by trying to spin the exorbitant price of the Obamapalooza tour to Asia as being about creating jobs in the U.S.?

I don't think it's appropriate at this time for taxpayers to be indulging Obama's ego.

It could give a sense of superior American organisation, or be an indicator of a deep-set persecution complex. It could also be a manifestation of Uncle Sam’s penchant for a show of strength.

The matter pertains to US president Barack Obama’s planned visit to Mani Bhavan —the Gandhi museum — on November 6, soon after he reaches Mumbai. On Monday, US secret agents visited the museum to plan Obama’s security detail.

They were accompanied by officers of Mumbai Police and civic officials of the D ward (where Mani Bhavan is located). While inspecting the route and the buildings lining up the route to the museum, the Americans detected a skyscraper near Peddar road and also found the area to be highly populated.

Since it is difficult to monitor such a congested area, they came up with a quick solution which left the Indians accompanying them amazed: A bomb-proof over-ground tunnel — to be installed by US military engineers in just an hour.

The tunnel would be a kilometre long and measure 12ft by 12ft — enough to let Obama’s cavalcade pass through. The tunnel would be centrally air-conditioned, fitted with close-circuit television cameras, and will be heavily guarded at every point, including, of course, its entry and exit.

This isn't a "manifestation of Uncle Sam’s penchant for a show of strength."

It's about Obama's penchant for ostentatiousness.

It's disgraceful for the Obama administration to try to sell the American people the line that all of this is really about creating jobs here at home.

Nonetheless, I suppose the liberal media will be drooling over Obama as he prances on the world stage. They will swoon over Michelle's wardrobe. That will only serve to punctuate how out of touch and detached Obama and his flunkies are from Americans and our everyday lives.

Obama, his massive entourage, and the liberal media cabal are likely to piss off many Americans.
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On this 10-day "jobs mission," how many times will Obama bow?

We know he won't bend or bow to the will of the American people. He doesn't respect us enough to do that.

"Bowing for jobs."

Good grief.

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UPDATE, November 6, 2010: Obama calls India creator, not poacher, of US jobs

Searching for help half a world away, President Barack Obama on Saturday embraced India as the next jobs-creating giant for hurting Americans, not a cheap-labor rival that outsources opportunity from the United States.

Fresh off a political trouncing at home, Obama was determined to show tangible, economic results on his long Asia trip, and that was apparent from almost the moment he set foot on a steamy afternoon in the world's largest democracy. By the end of the first of his three days in India, he was promoting $10 billion in trade deals—completed in time for his visit—that the White House says will create about 54,000 jobs at home.

That's a modest gain compared with the extent of the enduring jobless crisis in the United States. Economists say it would require on the level of 300,000 new jobs a month to put a real dent in an unemployment rate stuck near 10 percent.

..."For America, this is a jobs strategy," Obama said of his emphasis on trade, although it could stand as a motto for his 10-day trip.

Actually, I don't think this trip by Obama could have come at a worse time.

Rather than giving him an opportunity to regroup and look presidential, he's looking like a detached elitist, completely unaware and off course.

He's making a fool of himself suggesting that India is the answer to solving our unemployment problems in the U.S.

This trip is working against him.

India a jobs creator for the U.S.?

That's nuts.