I distinctly remember the placards in the windows of the union hall in my union-stronghold Michigan city: “Show Us the Jobs.” It was a thinly-veiled campaign against the Bush administration for what the AFL-CIO saw as a failure to create jobs.

The economy in 2009 and 2010 was and is far worse than it ever was in 2004. The unemployment rate in 2004 was 5.5%. Today, it’s 10%. If Obama could get the unemployment rate somewhere in the middle, the Nobel Committee would likely send him the prize for economics.

Saul Alinsky’s Fourth Rule for Radicals is, “Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.” So, in true Alinsky fashion, why not turn the left’s campaign against them? Republicans: adopt the “Show Us the Jobs” campaign. After all, the AFL-CIO’s bus tour to swing states didn’t begin until March of that year.

A pro-union newsletter said this about the AFL-CIO’s campaign:

A bus tour will soon travel to eight states and 18 cities to highlight parts of the country from small town America to large cities that have been hardest hit by job loss. The tour will end in Washington, D.C. to call on our nation’s leaders to make the jobs crisis their number one priority, and to put America back to work at good jobs. As the tour winds through these cities a spotlight will be focused on the devastating impact of the nation’s deep jobs crisis.

Seems like it’s about time for another bus tour, eh, AFL-CIO? It would be with good reason. In April 2004, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers framed it this way:

Show Us The Jobs was planned to put human faces behind the cold statistic of 2.2 million jobs lost since President Bush took office.

Using that qualifier (ie. “since President Bush took office”), here’s a dirty little fact: In just one-eighth of the time, the “cold statistic” provided by Americans for Tax Reform in June tells us that 2.2 million jobs have been lost since Obama took office.

President Obama was able to accomplish something that took the Bush administration eight times longer to do, through the AFL-CIO’s lens. Congratulations!

But sadly, this is still not a priority. No, it’s the opaque power grab of health care reform.

And the fact that the AFL-CIO isn’t waging a campaign against President Obama and Congressional Democrats underscores that cold fact.