I wonder if you noticed something of a theme this week?

When lawmakers bleat about how much they love small businesses, it can sometimes be nauseating but it is still a little reassuring. It is a nod in our direction, even if they don’t mean a word of it.

On the other hand, I’ll admit that it’s difficult to listen to those same lawmakers behave like starstuck fangirls every time somebody like Bill Gates or Jeff Immelt visits Capital Hill. Clearly, they really believe that U.S. economic policy should revolve around big businesses.

I hesitate to say this because I know what kind of firestorm usually erupts whenever anybody evokes the “C” word.

Honesty compels me to admit, however, that we haven’t had economic policy revolving around small businesses since the days when there was a White House Conference on Small Business and when the SBA Administrator was elevated to a Cabinet level position.

I am talking, of course, about the administration of President William Jefferson Clinton.

Now, before you start throwing things at me, stop and reconsider. I’ll be the first to admit that President Clinton was far from perfect. But it was clear from both the symbolic gestures he made and from the nuts and bolts policy he promoted that he was big on small and microbusinesses.

Presidents before and since have said they thought small business was the cat’s meow. President Clinton put his marbles where his mouth was.

And the results were impressive. Eight years of making small businesses matter — among other things, of course — and Clinton was able to boast about the thriving economy he stewarded, the budget surplus he was leaving behind, and the 11 million jobs that were created during his watch.

Granted, the credit for some of that had to do with things other than Clinton and small businesses. The point is that President Clinton meant it when he said small businesses were the nation’s job creators.

It turned out that they were, too. Right now, when we really need jobs, it seems rather odd that everybody in Washington has forgotten what we learned then.

Right now, in spite of what they say, Washington can’t even seem to remember that we’re there.

I’m not sure which is more infuriating, the incompetence or the hypocrisy.