As much as the President would like to bill his three-state tour as an exhibition in listening or leadership, it’s more of an exercise in cognitive dissonance
It’s being billed as a listening tour—a three-state journey across the Midwest where President Barack Obama will hear directly from Americans about the economy and talk about his ideas for job growth. Instead, though, it has the characteristics of a political campaign swing, and the rhetoric the President has brought along for the ride is marked by a desperate effort to blame someone other than himself for America’s economic woes.