Sails flapping, the rudder wobbling, the wind kicking up, and the skipper is thinking about where to eat lunch

As you know by now, the latest BLS jobs report shows zero job creation for the month of August.

You probably also know that the White House is lowering expectations for next week's jobs speech by the MEC.  It is now just part of an ongoing, doncha know, focus on the whole economic picture, which will include yet more trips into the heartland and more legislative initiatives and more finger-wagging at Congress for not buying into all the hooey.  So why in the hell did he feel, after a Martha's Vineyard vacation and a Camp David weekend and myriad other diversions, that it was so all-fired important to choose the specific date he did (from which he had to back down) and call together the entire legislative branch of the federal government?

I, like a number of pundits, have spent considerable time trying to parse the distinction between this guy's radical zeal - his obvious determination to "transform America" - and his equally obvious incompetence.  It now looks like the two go hand in hand.  That would explain why he is catching hell from fellow lefties such as Bernie Sanders, Maxine Waters and Michael Moore.  He can't even do implementation of socialist vision properly.  Of course, normal people are pleased that he backed down from the new EPA smog regs, but that move has made him a target for big-time ire from his own bunch.

He's just plain in over his head.  Yes, he was the darling of the Chicago radical crowd during his community-organizer days.  The Midwest Academy / UNO / Public Allies / New Party / Trinity Church / ACORN crowd adored him, but mainly as a handsome face to put on their activities.  He was never held accountable for whether he was really bringing about socialist utopia or merely keeping the inner-city constituents suitably agitated to vote the proper ticket.  He moved up the ladder so fast with no real accomplishments at any step along the way - besides "networking," forming coalitions and getting his name circulated among the right people - that he never learned the basic human behavior of getting something actually done that any of us - freedom-loving conservative, the mind-his-own-business apolitical citizen, or the die-hard Marxist revolutionary - have to learn to get anywhere.

And so here he is, faced with a desperately sick American - make that global - economy, a world stage changing at a dizzying pace, and a culture characterized by polarization, and, rather than being able to address it out of the conviction his leftist base is clamoring for, he muddles along each day, each hour, in utter confusion.

I wouldn't ordinarily do this - I generally reserve this blog for offering my two-cents'-woth to the right regarding the effective path forward - but to the raised-fist left, my advice is this: next time you think you have a shot at putting up one of your own as a presidential contender, make sure it's someone who walks the talk.  You know, someone with a work ethic.