Reuters provides us with coverage of President Obama from aboard Air Force One as he flies back to Washington, DC on Monday morning after his Christmas vacation in Hawaii. Proving that his brain remains firmly ensconced in a vacation fantasyland, however, Obama voices optimism that Republicans in Congress will set aside partisan differences to work with with him in creating jobs. At the same time, despite claiming that he wants to create jobs, word is also out that William Daley, whom President Bill Clinton used to sell NAFTA (which destroyed over a million jobs) to the American people, is now being considered for a prominent role in the Obama administration.  Daley is being considered even though after his NAFTA and Commerce Department roles with Clinton, he burnished his job-killing credentials by serving as Midwest Chairman of JP Morgan & Co. For the good of the country and the few remaining jobs here, we can only hope that Obama’s brain returns to him within a few hours.

The Reuters report brings us this fantasy from Obama, offered after the article discussed Republicans’ plans to try to repeal health care reform and prevent funding of the new Wall Street regulations:

“You know, I think that there’s going to be politics. That’s what happens in Washington — that they (Republicans) are going to play to their base for a certain period of time,” Obama said aboard Air Force One.

“But I’m pretty confident that they’re going to recognize that our job is to govern and make sure that we are delivering jobs for the American people and that we’re creating a competitive economy for the 21st century, not just for this generation but for the next one.”

And so, despite the stark reality that one of the primary goals of Congressional Republicans is to deny a second term to Obama, he remains upbeat about working with them:

“And so my expectation, my hope is that John Boehner and Mitch McConnell will realize that there will be plenty of time to campaign for 2012 in 2012, and that our job this year is to make sure that we build on the recovery,” Obama added.

Sadly, proving that Obama also is merely engaging in politics and not serious about his lip-service to job creation, we learn that William Daley, who was brought into the Clinton administration to “sell” NAFTA to Americans, is now a likely candidate for a high level position:

White House officials are considering tapping William Daley, the former commerce secretary and brother of Chicago’s mayor, for a senior administration position, most likely chief of staff, people familiar with the situation said Monday.

/snip/

Daley, 62, is a political heavyweight who would command immediate respect from the Washington establishment. He led the Commerce Department during President Bill Clinton’s second term and now is the Midwest chairman of JPMorgan & Co. He is the younger brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who is leaving office this spring.

Press-friendly and outgoing, William Daley could serve as a potentially powerful liaison to business interests and a vocal spokesman on economic matters – something White House officials have said they want as they focus on unemployment and the economy heading into the 2012 presidential race.

The Daley candidacy shows just how intellectually and morally bankrupt the Obama presidency has become. Not really just a symptom of the carry-over of vacation-inspired soft thinking, the Daley candidacy demonstrates how Obama will pay lip service to wanting to create jobs, but then move on to policies that destroy jobs and coddle big business, under the false impression that by doing them favors, he can convince business leaders once again to fund his election campaign.

Just as a reminder, here is an analysis of the impact of NAFTA from 2006, when it had been in place for twelve years:

Americans were promised that NAFTA would generate large numbers of net new good jobs. Instead, over a million jobs that would otherwise have been created were lost, and wages were pressured downward for a large number of workers with less than a college education.

Mexican employment did increase, but much of it in low-wage “maquiladora” industries, which the promoters of NAFTA promised would disappear. The agricultural sector was devastated and the share of jobs with no security, no benefits, and no future expanded. The continued willingness every year of hundreds of thousands of Mexican citizens to risk their lives crossing the border to the United States because they cannot make a living at home is in itself testimony to the failure of NAFTA to deliver on the promises of its promoters.

Canada likewise saw continental integration undercut working families. Except for those at the top, real incomes have virtually stagnated. Canadians were assured that NAFTA and the earlier Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement were necessary to save the social safety net of which they are justly proud. Yet a dozen years later, government transfers to individuals have dropped from 11.5% of GDP to 7.8% of the country’s GDP, and Canadian government’s overall (non-military) program spending fell from 42.9% of GDP in 1992 to 33.6% of GDP in 2001 (see Canadian analysis starting on p. 53).

Bringing back the man tasked with selling this job destroyer to the American public certainly is a wonderful way to show Obama’s true dedication to job creation. But don’t forget, with his interim service at JP Morgan & Co., Daley is now coming to us with value-added MOTU’iness, so we can rest assured that he is completely up to date on the latest techniques for destroying jobs and transferring even more wealth to the super-rich.

Daley will fit very well into an administration that walls off true champions of working people like Elizabeth Warren while allowing Wall Street to continue its destruction of the middle class. And rest assured that with the Washington establishment firmly believing that Democrats have ended their run of governing, nothing Obama does will put him far enough back into favor with Wall Street that they will provide him with anything close to the level of funding they gave him in 2008. In the end, Obama will destroy more jobs and allow even more wealth transfer to the super-rich and will get nothing in return for it.