The Obama team, we are told, can’t figure out how to stem unemployment. But actually, it seems they simply place job creation and preservation below other priorities. This report explains:

Senior Obama administration officials concluded the federal moratorium on deepwater oil drilling would cost roughly 23,000 jobs, but went ahead with the ban because they didn’t trust the industry’s safety equipment and the government’s own inspection process, according to previously undisclosed documents.

Critics of the moratorium, including Gulf Coast political figures and oil-industry leaders, have said it is crippling the region’s economy, and some have called on the administration to make public its economic analysis. A federal judge who in June threw out an earlier six-month moratorium faulted the administration for playing down the economic effects.

The Obama administration, the least transparent in history, however, has been actively misleading the court: “The administration has said in court filings that the economic effect of suspended drilling wasn’t as severe as the industry asserted.” The administration turns out to have less credibility than Big Oil. (“An American Petroleum Institute spokesman said the documents show ‘the government itself understood there would be significant impacts felt throughout the region.'”) And, in fact, the administration simply ignored those who raised the warning flag:

In another document, William Hauser, chief of the regulations and standards branch of what was formerly called the Minerals Management Service, outlined the risks of various drilling activities in an email to colleagues and then wrote: “The more I write this stuff the more I believe we can/should/could regulate/stop activities through a prudent management process versus a moratoria scheme.”

This shouldn’t surprise us. The administration’s proclivity to make grand gestures, finger point, bash private industry, and satisfy the left’s pent-up demand has meant that time and time again, the Obama team gave job creation and preservation short shrift. Extend the Bush tax cuts; we can “weather it.” Pass ObamaCare; business will absorb the costs.

It’s no wonder voters think Obama and the Democratic Congress have failed to focus on jobs. They are about to find out the perils of ignoring the voters’ concerns.