The president and his team have one goal – reelection. Nothing ignoble about that. They know their chances of achieving that goal depend heavily on getting the unemployment rate to turn down, sharply and soon, leaving enough time for the feel-good factor to take hold before November 2012. Nothing ignoble about that, either. And they have to persuade voters that the president is focused on that one goal to the exclusion of all else, that he will not be diverted as he was when he moved Obamacare to the top of his agenda last year. And that’s where Robbie Burns’s warning about what can happen to the best laid plans of mice and men comes in.

The president planned to bill his first-ever tour of South America – a four day, three country (Brazil Chile, El Salvador) affair – as a job-creation event, fulfilling his pledge to create two million export-based jobs. Never mind whether that goal is realistic, the point is that everything the president does, every act, every trip, is designed to convey one message: he cares about jobs. Press, take note.