After almost three years of Obamanomics, the American economy still hasn’t shown any signs of sustained, substantial recovery. The pattern of post-war recoveries shows a move to massive job growth long before our point in the time line. Whose fault is it? According to Barack Obama, we’re all just too lazy to recover:

Does President Obama believe the country he leads has the right stuff?

Every now and then Obama lets slip that he doesn’t believe his countrymen are all that tough.

Back in September he told a TV station that the U.S. had “gotten a little soft’’ when it came to competing in international markets.

On Saturday, speaking at a business forum on the sidelines of an economic summit in Honolulu, he said the U.S. had been “lazy’’ when it came to enticing businesses to invest in America.

“But we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades,’’ the president said. “We’ve kind of taken for granted — well, people will want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America.”

Gee, why wouldn’t people want to come to the US to invest?  After all, it’s not like we have a government expanding costly regulation at a breakneck rate, or a President sounding the dog whistle for class warfare, or his allies in the unions fomenting unrest aimed at financial institutions, let alone a corporate tax code that makes investing in Congress and the White House more lucrative than investing in American business.

The problem isn’t that America is lazy.  It’s that we picked bad leadership in 2008.

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.

Illustrations by Chris Muir of Day by Day. Be sure to read the adventures of Sam, Zed, Damon, and Jan every day!