Hey, remember a few years ago, back in 2009, when President Obama magnanimously promised us that — if we passed his stimulus — we would now at this very moment be sittin’ pretty with an approximate 5.6% unemployment rate? Huh. Hasn’t quite worked out according to his grandiose plans, has it?

This morning’s jobs numbers were a far cry from President Obama’s erstwhile promise; we’re still lingering around 8.2%, with economic growth just piddling along. The White House was quick to follow with a statement, kindly informing us impatient plebeians that there are “no quick fixes” to these economic doldrums. I suppose, in the long run, three and a half years really is just the blink of an eye:

While the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, much more remains to be done to repair the damage from the financial crisis and deep recession that followed.  It is critical that we continue the policies that build an economy that works for the middle class and makes us stronger and more secure as we dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession.  There are no quick fixes to the problems we face that were more than a decade in the making. President Obama has proposals to create jobs by ending tax breaks for companies to ship jobs overseas and supporting State and local governments to prevent layoffs and rehire hundreds of thousands of teachers.

Are they seriously suggesting that ending tax breaks for companies that offshore is a solution to our current economic problems? Talk about a drop in the ocean — it really is just a very transparent move to fuel populist hatred of Mitt Romney’s wealth. The idea that the economy can’t be fixed within a four-year time frame, because the problems were ‘more than a decade in the making,’ is absolutely pathetic. On the campaign trail in Ohio this morning after the jobs announcement, Obama treated us to more of the same baloney:

President Obama said at a campaign event on Friday that the June jobs report shows the economy has taken “a step in the right direction.” …

“That overall means that businesses have creatd 4.4 million jobs over the past 28 months,” Obama said at a rally in Poland, Ohio. “That’s a step in the right direction… But we can’t be satisfied because our goal was never to keep on working to get back to where we were in 2007.”

“We’ve got to grow the economy even faster, and we’ve got to put even more people back to work,” he said.

Okay, what jobs report is he looking at? Because I most certainly agree that we need to get the economy moving again and encourage growth — and these jobs numbers are definitely not a herald of policies effecting growth. This is the reading of the jobs report that I’m seeing:

U.S. employers added 80,000 jobs in June, barely better than the 77,000 they added in May. The monthly report from the Labor Department provided the clearest evidence yet that job growth has slowed from earlier this year. The U.S. gained just 225,000 jobs in the past three months combined, fewer than in January alone and the weakest quarter of job growth since 2010. The unemployment rate remained stuck at 8.2%. …

The report will do little to ease fears that the broader U.S. economy is losing steam. The Institute for Supply Management said this week that the manufacturing sector contracted in June for the first time since the first month of the recovery in July, 2009. Household spending fell slightly in May, the first drop in nearly a year, and consumers’ confidence in the economy has been falling.