I think we’ve come to expect some “retreads” over the years when it comes to political speeches. After all, the two parties only have so many original ideas between them (that being a vanishingly small number as it is) and they have to keep recycling the same material over and over. With that in mind, we can almost forgive the President for going back to the well and trotting out some of the Democrat classics like taxing the rich, paying fast food workers twenty bucks an hour and closing Gitmo. But what we aren’t always treated to is a case of stunt liberals who have already been identified as plants being trotted out for a second shot at the limelight.

Say… who was that lady sitting with Michelle Obama and being referenced by the President as one of the many success stories of the Obama economy?

The woman whose story of economic recovery was showcased by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address is a former Democratic campaign staffer and has been used by Obama for political events in the past.

Rebekah Erler has been presented by the White House as a woman who was discovered by the president after she wrote to him last March about her economic hardships. She was showcased in the speech as proof that middle class Americans are coming forward to say that Obama’s policies are working.

Unmentioned in the White House bio of Erler is that she is a former Democratic campaign operative, working as a field organizer for Sen. Patty Murray (D., Wash.).

Yes, I have to agree. The story might not have carried quite the same punch for this festive crowd if they came out and told everyone that the nice young lady who randomly wrote the President a letter was actually a Democrat Senate staffer and Obama activist. Sort of removes the whole “every American” aspect of the story and ruins the mood, you know? But it gets even better.

This random woman whose life was so improved by Obama’s policies that she felt compelled to reach out to him already has a bit of history with the Oval Office.

This also wasn’t the first time the White House used the former Democratic campaign staffer as a political prop. Obama spent a “day in the life” of Erler in June so that he could have “an opportunity to communicate directly with the people he’s working for every day.”

Reuters revealed Erler’s Democratic affiliations following that June event, and the Minnesota Republican Party attacked Obama for being “so out of touch with reality that he thinks a former Democrat campaign staffer speaks for every Minnesotan.”

So which is it? Has the President been caught in a bare faced obfuscation (to put it more kindly than we might) where he repeatedly used this woman as a stage prop to pretend she represents Miss Everywoman USA? Because if not, then we’re being asked to believe that Barack Obama’s memory – as well as that of his entire staff – is so bad that one might question whether or not such a person should have charge of the codes for the nuclear football.

I guess this was another oops moment. But I’m sure that his Chief of Staff can take the fall for it in a week or two.