There is gloom enough to satisfy Eeyore. The president promised the country that his massive $787 billion stimulus package and other spending would reduce the unemployment rate to 8 percent; with the loss of 131,000 jobs in July, it is stuck on 9.5 percent, and would be higher still had more than one million workers not withdrawn entirely from the work force since April. That figure rises to 16.5 percent if we count the 8.5 million workers involuntarily working part time, and 2.6 million workers “marginally attached to the labour force,” which includes 1.2 million too discouraged to continue job-hunting.

So Barack Obama flits from auto factory to auto factory, television cameras in tow, dons safety glasses and argues that he has, really has, created jobs, especially for unionized workers. Next week, voter-hungry Democrats and the odd Republican senator will vote to spend another $26 billion to reverse the tide of layoffs by state and local governments (50,000 jobs cut in July) that prefer federal government handouts to more belt-tightening.