No sooner had the absolutely horrifying unemployment report for March been released than we received an update on the status of engineer Darin Wedel, who became one of America's most famous job seekers two months ago.
At that time, Wedel's wife Jennifer found herself in one of President Obama's gimmicky "online chat??? events, and asked the President why the government is passing out so many visas for foreign workers when large numbers of Americans with excellent job skills are unemployed. Darin Wedel was a semiconductor engineer at Texas Instruments, but lost his job three years ago.
The President expressed surprise that such a fine resume couldn't bring offers of employment in the high-tech wonderland of Obamanomics, where "industry leaders??? just can't find enough people to grab all the lucrative jobs tumbling from their overflowing cornucopias. The exchange, as recounted by the Nashua Telegraph, went like this:
Obama said industry leaders have told him that the U.S. doesn't have enough of certain kinds of high-tech engineers to meet its needs. Wedel interrupted him to say that his answer didn't match what her husband is seeing in the real world.
"If you send me your husband's resume, I'd be interested in finding out exactly what's happening right there,??? Obama told her. "The word we're getting is somebody in that high-tech field, that kind of engineer, should be able to find something right away. And the H-1B should be reserved only for those companies who say they cannot find somebody in that particular field.???
The President reminded Mrs. Wedel to send that resume along to the White House at the end of the video chat, so the perplexing mystery of how this one poor fellow can't find a job - after Barack Obama declared "job creation??? to be his "top priority??? at least 17 times over the past three years! - might be solved.
She did indeed send the resume along, and the phones began ringing off the hook. The White House stepped forward to take credit for this latest example of "recovery??? magic:
White House spokesman Jay Carney fielded questions about Wedel and her husband's resume during a recent briefing.
"The exchange reflected the president's sincere interest and concern in the experiences of folks out in the country and how they're dealing with what remains a very tough economy, even as we continue the recovery that we've been engaged in now for 10 months, that there are a lot of folks out there who are looking for work,??? he said.
This White House statement, and the feel-good follow-up stories about the Wedel phone ringing off the hook, silenced dark muttering from far-left websites, which had begun wondering if Jennifer Wedel - a self-professed "good Republican??? who admitted she did not vote for Hope and Change in 2008 - might be some kind of sinister GOP plant, inserted into the President's video chat to sandbag him with a perfectly reasonable question. It helped enormously that Wedel went on to say that "I haven't seen anybody who would have been a good replacement??? for President Obama, and would "probably vote him back in.???
Not surprisingly, the Wedels also began hearing from desperate job-seekers who wondered if they might hope to to attract the notice of Good King Barack, and gain the favor of the royal court:
Wedel said she hopes that her conversation with the president will help not just her family but countless unemployed workers across the country as well.
"We're just one person,??? she said. "In my e-mail inbox, I'm getting flooded with notes from people in our exact situation, from all over the United States.
"I wish we could get everyone a job who needs one.???
Well, none of those wishes were granted. According to the March unemployment report, the American workforce continues to collapse under Obama's policies, shedding enough workers to nudge the "official??? U-3 unemployment rate down by .10 percent??? even though job creation was literally half what was posted in February, and far below the level needed to keep pace with population growth. Even the more supportive pro-Obama media organizations had to wince, while they scrambled to keep the real news out of the headlines.
And as for Darin Wedel, well, he still doesn't have a job. The brief flurry of interest artificially created when the White House stepped in and decreed that job offers should rain down upon one house in Texas has subsided, as reported by the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:
More than two months after President Barack Obama asked for Darin Wedel's r??©sum??©, the phone is quiet, e-mails are no longer flooding in and the long-sought-after job interviews - which had begun to be scheduled - have petered out.
"Not even recruiting companies are calling anymore," said Jennifer Wedel, the Fort Worth mother of two who chatted online this year with Obama about her out-of-work husband.
It sounds like Mrs. Wedel might be re-thinking her decision to vote President Obama back into office this November:
"I did feel we got our hopes up a little," Jennifer Wedel said last week. "I mean, he's the POTUS. But it seems not even the leader of our country can get [Darin] a job."
[???] After Darin Wedel was laid off, Jennifer Wedel went to work at an insurance agency, hoping to help support the family while her husband looked for a job.
Now, more than two months after her chat with the president, she has changed her approach. She is turning to social media to try to find a higher-paying job for herself to better support her family.
"We are doing fine," she said. "Unless reform comes to the H-1B program, I'm afraid we are in a place where 'our' family roles are changed.
"This is our permanent job [situation] now. It's unfortunate, but we will overcome," she said. "We didn't do the interview with the president to get a job. We did it to get a voice for so many Americans who, like my husband, are in the very same situation."
The "optics??? of this story are absolutely horrible for the White House, but it was actually horrible from the moment it began. The idea that Americans should have to beg the royal court for indulgences - which the court then demonstrates it cannot provide! - is nauseating, and it's not a new aspect of the Obama presidency. In the very first weeks of his Administration, he was at a town hall meeting in Florida when a homeless woman asked him for a house, and lo! A house was soon offered, after the President hugged her.
The President loves to govern by anecdote, peppering his speeches with references to all the letters of supplication he receives from the New Poor (formerly known as "the middle class???) All of these people's lives will supposedly be shattered if the Obama agenda is opposed. The childish absurdity of basing the decisions of a titanic mega-government on a handful of personal appeals never occurs to him, or to the media, which congratulates him on his political skill in "personalizing??? huge social "crises.??? That's how the last shreds of cold, hard reason are steamed out of our discussion of the most bankrupt government in history.
It's Obamanomics in a nutshell: if you're lucky enough to find your way into his carefully controlled town hall meetings, or you've got the right political connections, you can do okay??? until things get so bad that His Majesty can no longer wave his hand and cause bounty to be showered upon selected peasants. Fortunately, Obama can count on the media to downplay this story, instead of treating it as a powerful symbolic moment in a failed presidency, as they would if he were a Republican.
