Hours after President Barack Obama made his already infamous "The private sector is fine" statement, he was in damage control mode telling reporters, "it is absolutely clear that the economy is not doing fine." But if you read beyond the headline, the president actually doubled down on his original statement.

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Mr. Obama could have walked all the way back and said the private sector is not doing fine but instead he chose to use the broader term "the economy." He then followed up with, "I think if you look at what I said this morning, what I've been saying consistently over the last year, we've actually seen some good momentum in the private sector." In other words, the private sector is doing fine. And to someone whose ultimate goal is to grow the government in both size and scope until it controls every aspect of our lives, private sector growth is so irrelevant that the current dismal levels show "good momentum".

Republicans in general and GOP presumptive nominee Mitt Romney in particular have pounced on the president's "the private sector is doing fine" statement as evidence that he is out of touch with the economic suffering of the American people. A new ad from the Romney campaign features middle class workers sharing their struggles as a message to the president that the private sector is not fine.

But while the out-of-touch accusation is a popular one in politics these days, it's not the real reason our president thinks the public sector is doing fine. No, he thinks the anemic growth of private sector jobs really is "good momentum." He thinks that, despite all evidence to the contrary, more government taxing, regulating and spending in order to grow the size of government is the way to fix the economy.

Senior Obama campaign advisor David Axelrod reaffirmed that this morning on CNN's State of the Union program. When asked repeatedly if the administration really believes the private sector is fine, Mr. Axelrod would only respond with the claim that more public sector jobs need to be created.

"We need to accelerate job creation in the private sector. One of the ways that we can do that is putting teachers and fire fighters and police back to work because those are good middle class jobs," he said.

Of course that's the same argument that was made for the $800 billion plus stimulus bill which failed spectacularly. And now Obama and Company are trying to coerce the American people into financing their bad idea again.

Bottom line: when it comes to identifying the problems with the US economy and what government can and should do to alleviate them, President Obama is not out of touch. He's just dead wrong.