President Male Chauvinist Pig declares today “National Equal Pay Day.”

Oh, was that too harsh? I’m sorry: it’s just that I have a bit of a problem with President Obama having things like this written in his name:

When the Equal Pay Act was signed into law in 1963, women earned 59 cents for every dollar earned by men. Though women today are more likely than men to attend and graduate from college, women still earn an average of only about 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. Even when accounting for factors such as experience, education, industry, and hours, this wage gap persists. Over the course of her lifetime, this gap will cost a woman and her family lost wages, reduced pensions, and diminished Social Security benefits. Though we have made great strides, wage discrimination is real and women are still more likely to live in poverty. These inequities remind us to work even harder to close the gaps that still exist.

…when as a candidate Senator Obama notoriously hired less women, had less women in positions of authority, and paid them 82 cents for every male dollar. There’s just something about rank, hypocritical self-back patting that grates, somehow… particularly since declaring today to be “National Equal Pay Day” is about that you can expect out of this administration, anyway. Seriously, the Obama administration managed to muck up the passage of the so-called “Paycheck Fairness Act” last year, despite the fact that the 111th Congress had had the bill ready for Senate approval for virtually the entire term, including that one stretch where there was a cloture-proof majority*. And, oddly enough, the Obama administration completely forgets to mention that detail in the course of the aforementioned back-patting about how wonderful the White House is being towards women.

But then, actually passing legislation is hard. Lecturing other people about things that they need to do is easy, and this administration is all about doing things the easy way.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

*Yes, I understand the argument against the PFA; in fact, I opposed it myself (which has led to some interesting discussions with my wife). But the point here is that we have an administration that does not so much have the courage of its convictions as it utterly lacks the competence to carry those convictions out. That this rebounded to our advantage in this instance is merely a fortunate side-effect; President Obama is perfectly capable of failing in a manner that hurts us, too.