Unable to get his jobs bill through Congress, President Obama has agreed to chop it into smaller bits. What he had to say about that is very telling.

“I think maybe the first time, because we had it all in one bill, maybe they didn’t study it all properly,” he told a North Carolina audience on Monday. “Maybe they didn’t know what they were voting against. So we’re going to chop it up into some bite-sized pieces and give them another chance to look out for your jobs instead of looking out for their own jobs.”

That comment tells us two things: Obama continues to hold his opposition in contempt, and he still prefers legislation so big that nobody really knows what’s in it.

Let’s get the jobs bill chronology straight: On Sept. 9, the President demanded that Congress pass the bill. Four days later, it was unveiled, then introduced in the Senate. On Oct. 11 it failed in the Democratic-controlled Senate after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had changed the Senate rules to avoid an earlier vote because the bill didn’t even have enough Democratic support. Monday the President mocked Republicans for not studying it properly and said he’d break it into simple, easy-to-understand pieces.

Gee, thanks. It is perfectly obvious that people are getting wise to President Obama’s efforts to talk us into supporting complex bills before we have a chance to find out what’s in them.

It is notable that Nancy Pelosi said we had to pass the health care bill to find out what was in it, and Obama on Monday said we had to break up his jobs bill to find out what was in it. Maybe if the President put his support behind simpler, easier-to-understand bills in the first place, instead of large, complex ones full of fine-print surprises (the health care bill, the stimulus, Dodd-Frank) he’d have a better time drawing support.