Epic fail juxtaposition o' the day

James Pethokoukis calls this item "The entire Obama presidency, in one anecdote."

One of my favorite moments from the new book The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery:

Energy was a particular obsession of the president-elect’s, and therefore a particular source of frustration. Week after week, [White House economic adviser Christina] Romer would march in with an estimate of the jobs all the investments in clean energy would produce; week after week, Obama would send her back to check the numbers. “I don’t get it,” he’d say. “We make these large-scale investments in infrastructure. What do you mean, there are no jobs?” But the numbers rarely budged.

[Ed: gee, what a surprise!]

Now let’s fast forward to this past September:

A $38.6 billion loan guarantee program that the Obama administration promised would create or save 65,000 jobs has created just a few thousand jobs two years after it began, government records show. The program — designed to jump-start the nation’s clean technology industry by giving energy companies access to low-cost, government-backed loans — has directly created 3,545 new, permanent jobs after giving out almost half the allocated amount, according to Energy Department tallies.

So where are the new jobs coming from, at least the good-paying ones? From the industry Obama wants to replace as much as possible with “clean” energy: oil and gas.

Fast forward this week to President Obama's spastic, poll-driven reaction considered policy positions on, eh, energy.

To purportedly tame the progressive rise in gas prices, President Obama visited a North Carolina truck manufacturer on Wednesday to unveil a new $1 billion plan to advocate electric and alternative vehicles through consumer incentives and federal grants for states.

The "green" initiative, tagged the "National Community Deployment Challenge," provides a $10,000 tax credit — up from the current $7,500 incentive — to consumers purchasing "advanced cars and trucks." The grant program includes a "Race to the Top" contest that would award money to states with "model communities" that agree to fund infrastructure such as charging stations or natural gas corridors "where alternative fuel trucks can transport goods without using a drop of oil," according to the White House Press Fact Sheet.

Yes, that's right. He wants to funnel more money to his campaign contributors, bundlers, and other fat-cats and claim it's for "green jobs".

What's the definition of insanity again?