President Obama appeared in the Rose Garden this morning to respond to the dismal jobs report that showed unemployment rising to 9.2 percent over 18 months after the recession supposedly ended. He responded by not mentioning that number or grappling with what it means.

Instead, he continued the excuses and pseudo-economic gibberish that makes sense only to Tea-GOP Zombies and which explains why we’ve made virtually no progress in regaining the jobs we lost.

David Brooks is disgusted at the Tea-GOP Zombies. In another bridge-burning column, he calls out the Tea-GOP Zombies for being not only ideological zealots “unable to accept compromise,” but also anti-intellectual morons having “no sense of moral decency.”

But before you cheer Brooks’ acknowledgement of what the rest of the planet realized long ago, consider what it is Brooks believes is morally indefensible versus what is reasonable and wise.

Yes the Republicans in the Congress want to take the burden off of agribusiness and put it back where it belongs, on the helpless consumer. When there is a very effective and frankly cheep program that tests 15 times the number of crops for E. Coli, well that program has got to go!

Democratic leaders like Chuck Schumer complain that the Tea-GOP leaders are deliberately trying to tank the economy to improve their electoral prospects. True enough, but the Democrats are helping them by embracing the same anti-growth, anti-employment theories pushed by the Tea-GOP.

Ezra Klein cautions his readers not to get too attached to the idea the 14th Amendment’s prohibition on questioning the US debt might offer a way out of, or at least some leverage on, the debt limit hostage taking. And the alternative is…?

When Mr. Ryan”s plan to end Medicare limits the future elderly to a voucher that, according to the CBO, falls thousands of dollars short of the premiums needed to purchase Medicare-equivalent coverage from private insurers, and then tells them they have to purchase private insurance — and purchase only from private insurers without the choice of traditional and cheaper Medicare — then according to Santorum, that’s giving Americans the kind of freedom that thousands of Allied soldiers died to protect.

Not a single important problem that really matters to most Americans is being addressed, let alone responsibly, in Congress or those Biden meetings. All of the sound and fury in the nation’s capital that Chuck Todd and friends think are “news” is just posturing over things that are not, and never have been, actual problems, let alone crises. And even for those contrived issues, the “solutions” being considered are completely at odds with the wishes of the American people — which is why the discussions are happening behind closed doors.

A week ago, George Will advised Tim Pawlenty that now was the moment for him to make his move. On ABC’s This Week, Pawlenty did so. He got in the “let’s play chicken with the debt limit” car and headed it straight towards the cliff, joining the growing list of Tea-GOP presidential wannabes who should never be given a license to drive.

You would think that a sentient President of the United States would be embarrassed, ashamed, and contrite after one of the more mindless and destructive governmental performances in years.

Nope.

Paul Krugman spent Wednesday combing through the details of Tea-GOP genius Paul Ryan’s budget and in a series of blog posts utterly destroyed the Ryan budget’s phony math, implausible assumptions and unicorn forecasts. Kudos to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow for picking this up.

Krugman once called Ryan a “flim flam” man, a virtual con artist, and yesterday, he proved it. Let us count the ways.