Adventures in pivoting

President Obama apparently is trying to take advantage of the BP oil spill to push for "clean energy" legislation. As a card-carrying environmentalist and policy wonk egghead, I wholeheartedly approve. But right now more Americans are worried about jobs than clean energy, and the president could do himself more good by pivoting toward the jobs bill that is currently languishing in the Senate than the energy bills that are currently languishing in the Senate (the Senate: where good policy initiatives go to languish).

So President Obama, go out on the hustings today and propose a "clean jobs bill": strip out the "doc fix" and research tax credit extension and other garbage from the Senate bill and replace it with funding to hire - pick a number, say 100,000 - people to spend the summer cleaning up the coastal areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and (coming soon) Florida. Challenge Congress to pass the jobs bill - jobs for teachers, firefighters, cops, and oil cleanup crews - right now. Dare Republicans to stand in the way over concerns for the deficit.