In Wisconsin, Obama Pushes Green Jobs

[Geee]

Weekly Standard:

In Wisconsin, Obama Pushes Green Jobs
This is 'Recovery Summer.'

BY STEPHEN F. HAYES
August 17, 2010 8:50 AM

Menomonee Falls, WI

President Barack Obama spoke yesterday at ZBB Energy in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, touting the green company, the coming “green economy,” and his stimulus plan. Governor Jim Doyle was there, and so was U.S. Senator Russ Feingold. Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who would join the president for a closed fundraiser later in the day, did not attend the public event.

Obama’s speech was less than twelve minutes and, like the economy, very flat. During the 2008 presidential election, Obama would give stirring addresses that had even some of his ideological opposites wondering if they’d simply failed to give enough consideration to the power of hope. He spoke directly and he connected to his audiences in a way that few politicians can.

There was none of that in Menomonee Falls. Obama spoke to the crowd of 100 from behind the presidential podium, but the address – a list of his accomplishments and some perfunctory swipes at Republicans – was pedestrian. For one thing, Obama stood on a stage and read the speech from teleprompters on his left and right that were placed at his eye-level – well above the heads of the crowd. So Obama seemed to be looking beyond the group of people gathered at his feet rather than engaging them. The crowd was polite and those I spoke to afterwards were genuinely pleased to have the president in the plant.

But they’re a small group, and the Obama administration had not only blessed them with stimulus funds but the president was showering them with public praise. And as the teleprompters suggest, they weren’t the target audience.

[pollyannaish]

Heh.

 

I don't trust the whole concept of green jobs being part of a "new economy" anymore. In our state, loggers, lumber mills and forest fire fighters have all been reclassified as "green jobs." Next thing you know, Spotted Owl hunters will become "green jobs."