Obamateurism of the Day

Yesterday, we noted that Valerie Jarret told Meet the Press that Barack Obama wants to spend even more time out of Washington DC than the 48% of the days of his first two years.  Obama told his staff that he needs to talk directly to the people more often about his agenda in order to build support:

On “Meet the Press” December 26, top White House adviser Valerie Jarrett said President Obama’s “biggest regret” is that the severity of the economic crisis forced him to “spend almost every waking hour in Washington focusing very hard on solving that crisis” and thus kept him from traveling the country to connect with the American people.  According to Jarrett, Obama recently told aides, “I really want to figure out a way where I can spend more time outside of Washington listening and learning and engaging the American people.”  Jarrett says that in 2011 the president’s schedule will “reflect that priority” — that is, include more time outside the nation’s capital.

That strategy is apparently great for the President, but not for his new bestest buddies across the aisle in Congress:

“I think that there’s going to be politics, that’s what happens in Washington,” Obama said. “But I’m pretty confident that they’re going to recognize that our job is to govern and make sure that we are delivering jobs for the American people and that we are creating a competitive economy for the 21st Century. Not just for this generation but for the next one. And so my expectation, my hope is that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will realize that there will be plenty of time to campaign for 2012 in 2012. And that our job this year is to make sure that we build on recovery. We started making good progress on that in the lame-duck, and I expect to build on that progress when I get back.”

In other words, Obama can start barnstorming the country to push his agenda and attempt to blunt Republican attempts to roll it back, but it’s somehow illegitimate when Republicans do it.  Er … sure.

Got an Obamateurism of the Day? If you see a foul-up by Barack Obama, e-mail it to me at [email protected] with the quote and the link to the Obamateurism. I’ll post the best Obamateurisms on a daily basis, depending on how many I receive. Include a link to your blog, and I’ll give some link love as well. And unlike Slate, I promise to end the feature when Barack Obama leaves office.

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