Susan Madrack linked to this earlier today, but I’m bringing it back around because it’s so indicative of everything that’s gone wrong with the Democratic Party. And because it pisses me off in a big way:

In another public demonstration of concern about the struggling economy, President Obama will meet in Pittsburgh on Tuesday with the business and labor leaders he has chosen to counsel him on job creation. But many of the chief executives have cut American jobs and adopted tactics that weaken organized labor — even as their businesses post record profits. The executives are members of the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, which Obama created in January by appointing 26 leaders of companies including American Express, Comcast and Intel…

“They call it the jobs and competitiveness committee, but when they mean by competitiveness is massive concessions being imposed on working people,” said Chris Townsend, political action director of United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, which represents 3,500 General Electric workers. Townsend says General Electric has closed 31 U.S. locations and cut 22,000 jobs in the last four years. It has cut wages of nonunion workers and, in the most recent union contract, required employees to pay higher deductibles for health insurance and eradicated pensions for new employees. “We think it speaks of incredibly poor judgment on the part of the White House to select the members of the panel that they’ve selected and try to describe it somehow as a job creation panel,” he said.

It’s not poor judgment; it’s in-your-face cynicism. It’s Obama telling job seekers they’ll have to play ball with his corporatist pals and routinely accept jobs that pay less and involve fewer benefits than their parents enjoyed.

There’s nothing new about this dilemma. What’s new is that a Democratic president is overtly indicating he’s with the bosses, not with the workers. A real Democrat would be advocating for us directly, not sucking up to the people who are outsourcing and off-shoring our jobs for the sake of bigger executive bonuses.

No wonder so many people involved in Occupy Wall Street and similar protests refuse to even acknowledge party politics.