I find it truly comforting that some things never change — and two of those things are President Obama’s ideas and rhetoric. Obama’s long-awaited jobs speech offered his usual mix of hyper-partisanship (no longer convincingly masquerading as post-partisanship), class warfare, and thinly veiled resentment that, in our form of government, he cannot simply do whatever he wants.

But after many weeks of buildup and two years of arguably the worst post-recession recovery in six decades, the real tip-off that Obama is utterly incapable of changing course was when he again referred, Saturday Night Live-like, to fast trains. It’s now clear that this president’s idea of moving toward the center is staying away from the parts of the faculty lounge that border either the windows or the door.  His disconnectedness from most Americans’ concerns, and from their way of thinking, becomes clearer by the day.