By Laura Ingraham

Barack Obama surprised everyone today by actually appearing in Washington.

After a few days of Hollywood schmoozing and a week after the Department of Labor released the worst job numbers in the year, he held a short press conference and had this to report.

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OBAMA: The private sector is doing fine. Where we're seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government.

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INGRAHAM: What? The economy is growing at only 1.9 percent and the truth is there are 552,000 fewer Americans working now than when he took office in January 2009. And we've now had 40 straight months of unemployment above eight percent. This is not fine by any measure. It is shocking and it's unacceptable.

After Republicans jumped on his remarks, the President tried to clarify them later in the day admitting that the economy is not doing fine but maintaining that the private sector has seen momentum.

Look, the bottom line is this -- the President measures economic strengths by how big the government is but he has it backward. Government won't have tax revenues to hire people if the private sector doesn't add jobs. So he bemoans the fact that state and local governments are struggling and he issued this demand to the Hill.

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OBAMA: Congress should pass a bill putting them back to work right now. Giving help to the states so that those layoffs are not occurring.

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INGRAHAM: Issuing ultimatums especially when your party doesn't control both Houses of Congress is not leading. It's grandstanding, which is what he was doing yesterday in Las Vegas.

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OBAMA: Congress can't just sit on their hands. So my message to Congress is -- let's get to work.

I know this is an election year and that's not lost on me. But at this make or break moment for America's middle class, we can't afford to have Congress take five months off.

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INGRAHAM: Of course, he said this just a few hours after he himself was working hard at a private breakfast with young Hollywood stars such as Dianna Agron of "Glee" and Zach Braff of "Scrubs." On Wednesday he attended of course the star studded celebrity fundraising bashes both of theme in San Francisco and a number in Beverly Hills.

There's a big game of pretend going on here, folks. He pretends that both he and the economy are working and he hopes that voters don't catch on before November.

Even Ferris Bueller had only one day off, not an entire year. We need mature leaders in both parties to work together on critical issues. Perhaps most critical -- how to avoid the fiscal cliff that awaits us at the end of the year. Taxmageddon, here we come.

Now, I don't know what's worse. His pretending that the economy is working when it's not or pretending that he's working when he's not. And that's "The Memo."

Pinheads & Patriots

It's not every day that a high-school commencement speech catches our attention. But take a listen to Wellesley, Massachusetts, high-school English teacher David McCullough Jr.'s speech to the class of 2012.

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MCCULLOUGH: None of you is special.

You're not special. You're not exceptional. Contrary to what your U- 9 soccer trophy suggests, your -- your glowing seventh-grade report card; despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mr. Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia; no matter how often your paternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you, you are nothing special.

The great and curious truth of the human experience is that selflessness is the best thing you can do for yourself. The sweetest joys of life, then, come only with the recognition that you're not special. Because everyone is.

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INGRAHAM: You can decide if his message was on the mark or a bit over the top.

— You can catch Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points Memo" and "Pinheads & Patriots" weeknights at 8 and 11 p.m. ET on the Fox News Channel and any time on foxnews.com/oreilly. Send your comments to: oreilly@foxnews.com.