Is Valerie Jarrett Really as Simple-Minded as She Seems?

Yesterday Special Adviser to the President for intergovernmental Affairs and Public Engagement Valerie Jarrett contributed a blog to the Huffington Post entitled Why I’m Proud to Be Part of President Obama’s Team.

In the piece, she alternates reminiscences of her relationship with Barack and Michelle Obama with little homilies describing her feelings about her former protegee and now boss. Honestly, this woman comes across as about as politically sophisticated as an eighth-grader.

She begins by describing how she met the Obamas, and then shares her first uninspiring homily:

Today, President Obama is managing our nation’s challenges with the courage, wisdom, and compassion that I’ve seen time and time again over our two decades of friendship.

Really? She offers no specific examples of Obama’s “courage, wisdom, and compassion,” so I have no idea what she is referring to here.

Next Jarrett explains that her friend Barack always had a “remarkable clarity of vision, and an abiding faith in the power of ordinary individuals to do extraordinary things.” He grew up with people of other cultures, so he learned how to bring people together–or something. I think that’s her point.

That belief has been one of the driving forces behind President Obama’s career. Since his time as a community organizer on Chicago’s South Side, he has always held firm to his principles, but has also understood the importance of working towards the art of the possible. He knows that true leaders never let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

What do you suppose these “principles” are that Obama has “held firm to?” Jarrett doesn’t say. She certainly can mean that he has delivered on his promises, because he’s broken just about every one of them–except for his promise to “reform” Social Security.

The president has also always believed that a leader’s job is to act on behalf of the people he serves, not to score political points. Every day, he receives letters and emails from Americans who are doing everything in their power to solve the tremendous challenges they face. As long as President Obama is in the White House, he will listen to those Americans, and they will have a voice here in Washington. The president will never stop fighting on their behalf.

Do these letters and e-mails come from Wall Street insiders? Surely Jarrett cannot believe that Obama has listened to the concerns of poor, working-class, or middle-class Americans. Presumably, she is not a stupid person. She has a law degree and and undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford University.

Mr. Obama “is determined to change the tone” in Washington, she tells us. Apparently As an example of this, she relates a little parable about Obama welcoming Ruby Bridges the to the White House. Ruby Bridges was a little girl whose parents volunteered her to help integrate the New Orleans school system in 1960. She was “the first African-American child to attend an all-white elementary school in the South,” according to Wikipedia.

Ruby Bridges in 1960

And why was this White House visit so significant in demonstrating Obama’s great leadership skills?

The president told Ruby that were it not for her bravery, he might not be in the White House today.

That moment was a reminder that in my lifetime, we have made progress my parents and grandparents could barely have imagined. Through acts of courage large and small, Americans have chosen unity over division.

And besides, the Norman Rockwell painting of Ruby surrounded by Federal Marshals is now “on display outside the Oval Office!” {Gasp!}

People like Ruby “inspire the President,” Jarrett tells us. And Jarrett is inspired because after Obama’s speech last Monday

thousands upon thousands of citizens answered the president’s call, and proudly voiced their support for a balanced approach – not just to our deficits, but to our politics as a whole.

But they didn’t get a “balanced approach.” They got cuts to programs that affect the most needy Americans as well as the middle class and no increases in revenues. So what is Jarrett’s point here? Does she really believe this garbage? Does she expect people to read this article and not laugh at her? Is the woman really as simple-minded as she seems?

I’m not sure what Valerie Jarrett actually does in her job. My impression is that she is a highly paid “friend” who hangs around with Obama and flatters him. But perhaps “public engagement” in her job title translates to “propaganda minister?” If so, she’s not very good at her job. A child could see through her facile lies.