President not giving us much to celebrate

Organizing for America, the permanent Obama campaign apparatus, plans events across the nation this week celebrating the one-year anniversary of President Obama's election. Most Americans likely aren't in a celebratory mood at the moment or see much to cheer about.

Economists may say the recession is over, but it doesn't feel like it. Unemployment is at 9.8 percent and by all accounts headed for double digits. No one expects the joblessness rate to turn around until sometime next year, if then.

The administration is claiming the $787 billion stimulus package passed in February created or saved 640,000 jobs. The idea of tabulating "saved" jobs comes in for a heavy dose of skepticism from prominent economists. But two things are clear:

First, most of the jobs alleged to have been saved were government posts, often teachers -- meaning the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was about government protecting government. There's a question of how endangered many of those jobs were. State and local officials work mightily to avoid teacher layoffs.

Second, the stark reality is the economy has shed 2.7 million jobs since the stimulus was passed. By its own standards -- the measure was rushed through Congress on the grounds it would keep employment from going over 8 percent -- the stimulus bill is a failure.

Polls indicate fixing the economy should be the government's top priority and that 80 percent of Americans with health insurance are satisfied with it, but Obama and the Democrats running Congress are obsessed with passing a new health-care entitlement. They claim taxes on the wealthy and cuts in Medicare can pay for it without adding to the deficit. That ignores the reality of the previous health-care entitlements -- Medicare and Medicaid -- turning into tides of red ink. Trillion-dollar deficits already are souring the mood of voters.

Also not feeling particularly cheerful are parents standing in long lines only to be turned away from getting swine flu vaccinations for their children. The administration said in the spring as many as 120 million doses would be ready by now. The figure was only 16 million doses last week.

Looking overseas, the administration likes to credit Obama for improving attitudes about America. Maybe so, but it's not translating into much in the way of concrete results to cheer about.

Despite aggressive courting of Iran, the regime in Tehran appears to be reneging on the deal it accepted only last month to ship nuclear fuel out of the country for enrichment. Appeasing Moscow -- and alarming our Eastern European allies -- by abandoning an anti-missile complex in Poland and the Czech Republic doesn't seem to have brought Russia on board for tough sanctions to push Iran to end its nuclear weapons program.

A year ago, the Israelis and Palestinians were talking. Today, they're not -- in part because Obama encouraged the cause of Arab rejectionism by issuing unrealistic demands on Israel.

America may be back in vogue in the salons of Paris and London but not in Pakistan. Anti-Americanism is so white hot there that Pakistan forbid American officials to talk about U.S. humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting.

Closer to home, there's little to celebrate in Washington siding with our adversaries Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Fidel Castro of Cuba to undermine the democratic institutions in Honduras trying to foil a Chavez-wannabe from seizing permanent power.

At home, the new spirit of civility and bipartisanship Obama promised hasn't materialized. Instead the White House targets the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Fox News and health insurers as enemies. And Obama's minions on MSNBC try to characterize Obama critics as racist, unpatriotic and even treasonous.

I'd bet that amid the celebrations, the Obama folks will find some way to blame George Bush for all the troubles. So far at least, blaming Bush is what this administration does best -- and often.

Comment at suntimes.com.