BY MICHAEL S. JOHNSON

Some years ago, a politician in West Virginia hired a very savvy political professional to write strategic plan for him to run for Congress. The professional burned the midnight oil and produced a comprehensive, 60-page roadmap to Capitol Hill. 

She presented it and waited while the prospective candidate began reading:  “OBJECTIVE: TO WIN ELECTION TO THE UNITED STATES CONGRESS.”

The candidate lookup up from manuscript and said he had a problem with the first line. He really had no interest in serving in Congress, he wanted to set himself up to run for governor and thought running for Congress would be a good stepping stone.

I was reminded of that story September 7,when President Barack Obama appeared before joint session of Congress and demanded–seventeen times, no less—that the legislators pass his latest job-creation program. Why?

President Obama’s speech was a hoax. His objective that night was not congressional approval of his jobs agenda. He was really setting the stage for his re-election in 2012. 

Last week the U.S. Senate defeated the jobs bill. I recall seeing a Washington Post story calling it a stunning defeat for the President.  Balderdash! It was a great victory for the campaigner-in-chief. He wanted the issue, not the legislation. 

Politico wrote as much on Oct. 11: “President Barack Obama didn’t do much to bring along lawmakers on his jobs bill—and it showed in the Senate vote Tuesday.” Politico reporters went on to opine that Obama’s “relentless focus on the American Jobs Act wasn’t about racking up a legislative win, it was always about laying the foundation for the only real argument Obama has in 2012:  I have a plan to create jobs now and Republicans don’t.” I wish reporters would keep their opinions to themselves, but in this case they were exactly right.

The President’s exploitation of the House chamber for partisan purposes and the deception of the jobs plan was no great revelation to anyone. It was conventional wisdom in Washington days before he took the podium in the chamber of the House of Representatives.

But the political theater that has now wasted another two months of our time should not be  dismissed as commonplace, not should it be excused.

The media are letting the President get away with one of the most blatant abuses of the White House, Air Force One and the House chamber, in sometime. There hasn’t even been an attempt to disguise the partisan rhetoric, or the whirlwind national tour to presumably to sell a piece of legislation he doesn’t want passed (last week it was reported that while selling his jobs plan he managed to squeeze in 12 fundraising events in two days) and the total lack of energy being devoted to getting something enacted that will actually reduce unemployment and stimulate economic growth.   At the very least, the media ought to hold the White House accountable for who paid for his travel—the taxpayers or the Democratic National Committee.

The disrespect for and the deception of the unemployed, the families caught in foreclosure and small business people watching their life go down the economic drain is jaw-dropping. Common political decency would suggest the White House at least fake an effort to govern.  

I know. It’s nothing new. Presidents have for a long time blended partisan politics and public policy so you can’t distinguish between them. But it is getting worse. It seems with every new generation of politics in America, the abuses get more brazen, the partisanship more debilitating, the costs higher, and the length of the campaign season flowing seamlessly from the one to another. Pundits predict that there is in an off=campaign year only about six months in which any governing can get done, before partisan political campaign interests consume the political process. Think about it. A 2-year cycle and we get six months of governing at best?

I know, too, that some like Charles Krauthammer think this is healthy, it’s all part of the ole’ give and take of our democratic republic. Bull. At some point, any organization has to produce a product. Once a year or so I agree with columnist Davide Milbank, who wrote Sunday this is like the old Brooklyn Dodger’s motto (and that of the Chicago Cubs), just wait ‘till next year.

That of course is the other dimension of the Americans Jobs Act theater that deserves much more attention and concern–the incredible lack of governance.  

Congress finally approved three trade agreements this week, deals that have been sitting in the bottom drawer of the President’s desk for a couple of years; not months, but years. And, the President and called their passage an achievement. Most of what the President and Congress have done is miss deadlines, pass temporary, stop-gap measures, and keep the country on the brink of economic and political collapse. It really doesn’t matter whether you believe in small government or big government, activism or passivism. In order to advance your principles or ideology, or keep the campaign promises you made, you have to govern eventually. You have to act and do so in a manner that is eventually going to lead to enactment of law. Congress keeps sinking like a led ball in the polls.  But those at both ends of the political spectrum believe it is because the adversaries are failing, not them. Both, of course, are wrong. You can argue about who is failing more than whom, but that is fiddling while Rome burns.

Feverish political minds find ways to rationalize the politics of brinkmanship, which is the political equivalent of diet purging. They embrace a belief that the country and its people will be better under governance in the image and likeness of their ideology and that a degree of pain is justified in achieving that end. Their logic relies on a military-style acceptance of collateral damage. 

In other words, if say a few million people have to remain unemployed for another year, or if a couple million people lose their homes to foreclosure, or a million or so seniors have to put off retirement for another year, the suffering will ultimately be worth it. Balderdash! 

The theory just isn’t true and people suffer for nothing while the jousting for power continues one election into another and one campaign after another. 

It begs the question asked by Pete Seeger and Peter, Paul and Mary a half century ago: When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn?”