Well, that's basically what he said. And if he'd said just that, I guess I'd agree. But he didn't.

He told us how damnably popular he is, yet again.

President Barack Obama deflected criticism Monday that he has not been attentive enough to the African-American community, telling American Urban Radio Networks that he was unconcerned to see that kind of message coming from former supporters such as actor Danny Glover.

"If you want me to line up all the black actors, for example, who support me and put them on one side of the room and a couple who are grumbling on the other, I'm happy to have that," Obama said, adding that polls show African-Americans express "overwhelming support for what we've tried to do."

In an interview with reporter April Ryan, Obama argued that the fact of his sitting with Ryan for an interview with the Oval Office was significant on its own.

"Is there grumbling?" he asked rhetorically. "Of course, there's grumbling, because we just went through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."

As Kanye West said, Obama hates black people. Or at least his grumbling black critics.

I think we can establish a general rule that Obama doesn't like anyone who doesn't polish his ass to a high sheen.

A bit more:

Obama repeatedly used the pronoun "we" in discussing America's black community, but insisted that he shouldn't be expected to target policies exclusively to African-Americans.

"The only thing I cannot do is, by law I can't pass laws that say I'm just helping black folks," Obama said. "I'm the president of the entire United States. What I can do is make sure that I am passing laws that help all people, particularly those who are most vulnerable and most in need. That, in turn, is going to help lift up the African-American community."

This is a bit telling. Much of what he's doing is a wealth-transfer from one demographic (older, whiter) to another (younger, blacker). One needn't need to be a racist to object to such take-from-me-to-give-to-thee scheming.

As he says, he can't pass laws that "say" he's doing this, even if he's kind of doing it.

This guy has just never gotten serious criticism in his life. He's been overindulged and promoted far beyond his abilities his whole damn life. Until now, when he's promoted to a position he's plainly unqualified for, and he's shocked at this new human invention called "criticism."

Psychologically, this guy is the high school Alpha Jock who was King Shit of Fuck Mountain for the whole of his life... until he fails to make the team in college, and his status as a superstar is suddenly taken away from him.

And he reacts with anger, of course, swirled with a bit of existential panic -- What is he if not that?

So that's what we have in this "first-class temperament" guy. A coddled, petulant boy-man who stewing in resentment that the the rest of his life wasn't just as easy as grades K-12.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 01:45 PM | Comments (274)
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You have got to be kidding me.

“There are 100 senators here and I don’t know that there’s a senator that doesn’t have something in this bill that isn’t important to them,” Reid said. “If they don’t have something in it important to them then it doesn’t speak well of them.”

He likened the legislation to the defense bill, which is thick with earmarks and other provisions benefitting individual members and even private corporations.

“That’s what legislations all about,” Reid said of the compromises

It's unreal how cavalier they are talking about using our money to bribe one another. (h/t: @seanhackbarth)

Posted by: Slublog at 12:36 PM | Comments (171)
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All these red-diaper babies are going to be wearing golden diapahs. In addition to the red ones.

There is some small truth in the notion that passing this is good for them: The controversy would at least go away. They would no longer be twisting in the wind. The unpopular, budget-busting piece of shit would become a source of mere retrospective griping than in-the-moment anger.

As they say, it is easier to beg forgiveness than to seek permission.

And I figure that is worth... what, two or three points?

Captain Wonderful and his Commando Team Unicorn Bravo figure it's worth 15 points.

Everybody who is part of the Obama coalition recognized that the first order of business had to be the economy and that we needed to focus on that and that we need to continue to focus on that until it turns around,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen told POLITICO. “In talking to labor, their No. 1 priority was getting the economy turned around.”

And it wasnÂ’t just the economy. A united Republican opposition scuttled hopes of a new politics. Presidential efforts would not have won for interest groupsÂ’ prized priorities the required 60 votes in the Senate, according to administration officials. And the passage of health care reform, one official predicted, will send ObamaÂ’s approval rating up past 60 percent and restore his supportersÂ’ enthusiasm.

More:

There's no point in the White House saying this, so it won't.

But an official predicted to me the other day that Obama's numbers would hit 60 after the health care bill passes, and Chuck Schumer seems to think roughly the same thing: that the public polling on the Democratic reform bill will turn around "soon."

When people see what is in this bill and when people see what it does, they will come around," Schumer said. "The reason people are negative is not the substance of the bill, but the fears that the opponents have laid out. When those fears don't materialize, and people see the good in the bill, the numbers are going to go up."

Right. People are going to be blown away by a plan whose benefits begin in 2014 but which begins escalating taxes on every damn thing in sight immediately.

Incidentally, this prediction fails to take into account the most important thing, the one thing that will never change: This is racism straight-up, nothing but opposing a president because he's black.

So unless Obama also plans on a Michael Jackson regimen of chemical peels and daily bleachings, I don't see how it gets to 60%.

Plus, he would still need a hooky single with a phat beat and/or a nasty groove.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Bonus: AMA Endorses Reid Abortion. Hey, thanks for the $250 billion, doc-fix guys. Here's that endorsement we promised you in return.

The Chicago Way

They pull a scalpel, you pull a $250 billion dollar bribe.

They put one of yours in the hospital, we give the guy in a hospital some end-of-life death panel counseling.

That's the Chicago Way -- and that's how you get socialism done.

Headline Changed... To include "Hopium," as suggested by Brandon in Baton Rouge.

Posted by: Ace at 11:30 AM | Comments (178)
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Rumors are being passed that Republican Senators (and their staff) want to be able to go home by Christmas Eve, a desire that is being frustrated by Majority Leader Reid's healtcare vote schedule. The rumor is they will yeild the balance of their time and cough up the remaining two cloture votes.

My friend Zach (@redhk) put it well:

Memo to Senate GOP leadership: our troops won't be home for Christmas Eve either. Deal with it.

I couldn't agree more.

UPDATE: Via commenter David in San Diego, the latest is that the GOP leadership abandoned their abandonment plan. It doesn't take a genius, guys...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 11:29 AM | Comments (53)
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Senator Ben Nelson clearly needs to brush up on his Dale Carnegie. Nebraska citizens held a rally over the weekend to protest Nelson's decision to vote for Obamacare.

David Madsen of Nebraska City and his wife, Diane, told AP they felt betrayed by Nelson, whom they had counted on as pro-life.

"I will actively be involved in my own community to lead the fight against Ben Nelson," Madsen said.

Nelson, himself, condemned the rally.

"This is all orchestrated," Nelson said Sunday. "It's so thinly disguised ... it's almost laughable."

Nelson is clearly feeling the heat, because this weekend on CNN he tried to claim that he worked with Nebraska's governor in crafting this compromise. Turns out that's not entirely accurate.

I think Heineman just made the short list of potential 2012 opponents for Nelson.

Posted by: Slublog at 11:09 AM | Comments (54)
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So, Massachusetts-area morons, are you all volunteering for Scott Brown's Senate campaign? Because as far as I can tell from hundreds of miles off, this may be the best shot at a GOP victory there in our lifetimes:

(1) Good, likable candidate
(2) Midyear off-election with no incumbent
(3) Angry, anti-Democratic current now even in the bluest states
(4) Third-party candidate on the ballot named "Kennedy"

If the GOP manages a pickup here, it will do much to torpedo the rest of Barry's agenda. And no matter what, going out to fight is much more satisfying than predicting doom from the comfort of your couch.

Posted by: Open Blog at 10:28 AM | Comments (104)
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A little something to blow some time today.

WUWT has all 6 parts posted.

Of course, FOX isn't a real news station, so ignore the "record" "cold" and "snow" outside your windows as that is simply data that hasn't been homogenized yet. Get with the program, stop breathing so heavily and for Gaia's sake, buy some AlGore brand carbon credits. His mansion doesn't light itself after all.

Posted by: Open Blog at 09:16 AM | Comments (54)
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Yes, again. Sorry. Will be around for a bit and then out.

Posted by: Ace at 08:57 AM | Comments (60)
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I did not know that.

This afternoon, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) gave a speech in which he quoted Richard Hofstadter's 1964 essay, "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" and accused ObamaCare opponents of inciting "vindictive passions":

"Far from appealing to the better angels of our nature, too many colleagues are embarked on a desperate no-holds-barred mission of propaganda, obstruction and fear. History cautions us of the excesses to which these malignant, vindictive passions can ultimately lead. Tumbrils have rolled through taunting crowds, broken glass has sparkled in darkened streets. Strange fruit has hung from Southern trees. Even this great institution of government that we share has cowered before a tail-gunner waving secret lists."

In case you don't know (I didn't), tumbril is used correctly. It's a cart used to move prisoners to a place of execution. So give him one point for his SAT Word Builder usage!

And in case you also didn't know, "strange fruit hanging from trees" is a darkly poetic reference to lynched black men in the KKK-terrorized countryside.

We just got the latest CBO scoring on the Republican alternate plan and it says that "broken glass glittering in darkened streets" will save us $80 billion over ten years, and the key part of the conservative alternative -- "strange fruit hanging from trees" -- may save us up to $120 billion.

Pretty good, huh?! And they say we have "no plan." Nonsense! We're going to kill everyone who doesn't look exactly like us. That's like an awesome plan!

How come the leftists never talk about the good things that come from our KKKristallnacht agenda? All they do is dwell on the negative.

...

UPDATE: More from the Whitehouse speech, referring to Hofstadter's "paranoid style" thesis:

"Vindictive passions often arise, [Hofstadter] points out, when an aggrieved minority believes that America has been taken away from them their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. Does that sound familiar . . . in this health debate? . . . [Hofstadter] wrote of the dangers of an aggrieved right-wing minority with the power to create what he called a political climate in which the rational pursuit of our well-being and safety would become impossible."

Video of this awful speech here.

Instapundit has some reaction, including from sometime AoSHQ commenter Rob Crawford:

One of the things that bugs the living shit out of me about this type of rhetoric is that it is, on the margin, a self-fulfilling prophecy. People with good-faith objections find themselves lumped in with nut jobs, cranks, and thugs, and after a few decades, the “as well hung for a lion as a lamb” attitude. If objecting to government running your healthcare, controlling access to your medical records, confiscating another 30%+ of your labor and effectively drafting the medical industry means you’re an Aryan, right-wing militia, “birther” type, well, maybe you should give those groups another look…

I’m not going to claim the Republicans are innocent of this type of rhetoric, but, well, at least when they pointed out that the primary organizer of “anti-war” marches was the Communist group ANSWER, they had evidence to back them up.

Rasmussen has it now at 41% supporting, and 55% picking out their Lucky Juden-Window-Smashing Rocks.

Even Lindsey Graham is so passionate against this plan he calls those offering it liars.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), using exceptionally heated language, called the health care bill on Sunday "seedy Chicago politics,” “backroom deals that amount to bribes,” “Enron accounting,” “the worst of Washington,” “phony,” and a “sham,” adding that Obama’s campaign slogan of “change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan.”

Asked it the Senate bill was a done deal, Graham, appearing on CNN's "State of the Union," replied:

“This is far from over. The House and Senate bills are in many ways irreconcilable. But you know, I like David. He ran a brilliant campaign, but they're doing a lousy job governing the country, in my view. You know, change you can believe in, after this health care bill debacle is now becoming an empty slogan. And it's really been replaced by seedy Chicago politics, when you think about it, backroom deals that amount to bribes.”

Host John King interjected: “Bribes -- that's a strong word.”

Graham defended his choice of words: “Well, it is, oh, absolutely, it's a strong word. It was meant to be strong; principled compromised -- I mean, a compromise sold as a principled solution to an emotional problem like abortion that's fallen flat; Enron accounting techniques -- everything that people were upset with about Washington has gotten worse. And this bill personifies the worst of Washington.”

“You and I know -- you've been around this town a long time -- that the Senate and the House is not going to impose those cuts. So when you put that into the health care mix, this thing doesn't save money; it costs money. And that's phony.”

“So it is Enron-accounting. It is a sham. You collect taxes for 10 years and you pay out benefits for six years, and the Class Act, which no one's talking about, is a completely new government entitlement.

"On top of that," the Senator continued, "No one's talking about the single-most important we can implement right now to reduce health-care costs -- lighting crosses on our front lawns and starting up 'health-care camps' where we can better take care of our neediest, most troublesome, most racially impure citizens."

I added that last bit, but the rest was real.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff for the latter tip.

Transpartisan Consensus: Ultrapartisan liberal Jane Hamster declares a left/right coalition of outrage can defeat the bill, and says that her complaints aren't so very different from those of the "tea party activists."

(She's quoting someone else, but endorsing the idea.)

Notice the quoted words: "tea party activists." Not "tea-baggers." Sounds like some Strange New Respect going on!

Kaus also wonders if lefty bloggers like Ezra Klein who previously chastised the right for being "willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in order" will throw the same eliminationist slur against their non-selling-out erstwhile allies on the left.

Racism, Straight-Up! Senator Whitehorse endorses the Jeneane Garalo Paranoid style of politics:

“Voting ‘no’ and hiding from the vote are the same result. Those of us on the floor see it. It was clear the three of them who did not cast their yes votes until all 60 Senate votes had been tallied and it was clear that the result was a foregone conclusion. And why? Why all this discord and discourtesy, all this unprecedented destructive action? All to break the momentum of our new young president.

They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one.”

That's from Hot Air (actually Kerry Picket at the WashTimes has the fuller transcript.

As I've noted before, we racists did the same thing to our first (superior) African-American President, Bill "MC Slick" Clinton, and his nappy-haired wife, Hillary "Lil Hillz" Rodham-Clinton, and of course their whole "posse," including that degenerate octoroon Syd "The Ruckus" Blumenthal and that stupid Alarm Clock Necklace he'd wear all the time when he was shooting up DC clubs with his trusty "nines."

So, yeah, I do concede that, we racists do have a history of opposing black presidents and their black-as-the-ace-of-spades staffers like Mickey "Kid Menorah" Kantor and Howard "H Dogg" Wolfson and Lanny "DJ Nasssty" Davis and, well, all of those shiftless darkies we opposed in 1993.

Seriously, were these guys vacationing on Planet Xenon in 1993? When the race of the president and his whiter-than-white senior staff pushed a budget-blowing health care entitlement expansion, it was vigorously opposed. How is race necessary to explain the current opposition?

Posted by: Ace at 08:14 AM | Comments (208)
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Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:55 AM | Comments (270)
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