Obama, jobs and right wing media amnesia

In a piece that might have been delivered to him pre-written by the RNC, hapless GOP steno Byron York falsely claims Obama has done nothing to encourage our economic recovery. In fact, in this worthless word salad of phony GOP talking points, York alleges President Obama ignored the nation's economic woes altogether for the last four years except for a few words in his last inaugural address.

Maybe Mr. York didn't notice the hard fight Obama put up right out of the gate to rescue our economy from the fiery ruins of the economic meltdown his predecessor left behind. The battle to get stimulus funds. The bold and much criticized rescue of the auto industry. The executive orders to institute jobs programs such as he could outside of the relentless obstruction of a Congressional mob of recalcitrant Republicans who not only blocked and/or voted against every single job creating program put forward by the White House or the Democratic party but also fought to defund already existing job creating programs.

And York's amnesia apparently extends to the now long dead jobs bill Obama pushed for many weeks to get to the floor of Congress. Elon Green remembers:

I refer, of course, to the American Jobs Act, which was introduced in September 2011 and died on the table, thanks to Republicans, a month later. The failure to pass this $450 billion bill was of massive consequence to the economy in general and jobs in particular.

Obama certainly wasn't perfect on addressing unemployment. He put way too much trust into self-interested financial advisors who were wrong about almost everything. But to suggest that Obama did nothing at all is so wilfully blind to the historical record it verges on a criminally negligent failure to inform the public.

This sort of journalistic malfeasance is exactly why the Republican party has no fear of repeatedly pushing blatant lies into the news media. Not only can Republicans feel safe to lie with impunity, they can depend on friends like Bryon York to amplify the false and invented reality that is currently destroying the GOP from within today.