"Powerless" Redux - A New Meme?

Yesterday I noted that Politico had referred to President Obama as "powerless" to impact the economy.   Today I note an article from The Hill, also from yesterday, that had this line as its lede:

Democrats are bracing for the jobs report due Friday morning from the Labor Department, knowing their political futures rest on the economy over which they have little control.

My initial reaction was to take these comments literally as the ideological concessions that they appear to be:  if a liberal Democratic President and his liberal Democratic compatriots in Congress are "powerless" and "have little control" over the economy, then what bilge have they been selling us for eighty years about managing the economy?   Has the massive bureaucracy of regulation and intervention built up over the past four freakin' generations really only been a jobs program for government bureaucrats?

Well, in a word, yes.  

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On the other hand, there was  also this strange comment from Jay Carney, the President's press spokesman, again yesterday, saying that the White House doesn't create jobs:

“The White House doesn’t create jobs,” Carney said, adding “the government, together — White House, Congress — creates policies that allow for greater job creation.”

I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but it sure seems to me that the Left is advancing a new meme in concert that Obama can't really do anything about jobs.   Call it a trial balloon before the 2012 race, where they know he will get hammered on a four-year record on employment that is so terrible.