Mark Halperin Was Right

I've been in a state of disbelief for the past 24 hours over that Obama press conference yesterday, thus the blog silence.  I mean, what do you say to something like that?  Can you imagine Ronald Reagan ever giving such a petulant, angry, nasty speech pitting Americans against Americans like that?  Good grief.

Pundette did a great analysis of the speech here and here:

There's something wrong with his attitude below, as if governing the United States of America is some kind of game:

They’re in one week, they’re out one week.  And then they’re saying, Obama has got to step in.  You need to be here.  I’ve been here.  I’ve been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis.  You stay here.  Let’s get it done. 

"Doing Afghanistan"? That's a disturbingly casual way to refer to a war in which Americans are risking and losing their lives. (And what, pray tell, is he "doing" about the Greek crisis?)

Victor Davis Hanson was equally horrified and wonders...

But one thing seems unclear: How does an attack on private jet travel square with his present efforts to wow Wall Street fat cats and the junkets to Vail, Martha’s Vineyard, and Costa del Sol? Or for that matter with the once tax-exempt Kerry yacht, the private-jet networking of green capitalist Al Gore, and Nancy Pelosi’s government-paid-for jet flights back to the Bay Area?

What I'm trying to square is how Obama can chide Congress and boast about how hard he's working on things yet he's off at this moment on another fundraiser (two of them today) and he refused the Republican's invitation to Capitol Hill today to work on the issues:

Jay Carney told the media earlier today that McConnell’s invitation was “not a conversation worth having.”  Sounds a lot like Obama’s own press conference.  It also highlights a particularly Democratic approach to bipartisanship, which is usually defined as Republicans agreeing to Democratic demands, which is more or less how Obama defined the supposedly bipartisan process that produced ObamaCare and Porkulus, both of which were written by Democrats without Republican input.

So the line yesterday was all about how we have to work together and get things done but today?  Well, today it's not worth talking to Republicans about anything. 

I think Mark Halperin was right.

Quote of the Day

Perfectly spot on by Ed Morrissey...

No, but when you can get the rest of the farm chasing Snowball, it certainly provides a distraction from actual misery, doesn’t it?

...in reference, of course, to Mark Halperin's rude awakening that Obama might be in over his head after all.

 Halperin laments:

But Obama has exacerbated his political problems not just by failing to enact policies that would have actually turned the economy around, but also by authorizing a series of tactical moves intended to demonize Republicans and distract from the problems at hand. He has wasted time lambasting his foes when he should have been putting forth his agenda in a clear, optimistic fashion, defending the benefits of his key decisions during the past two years (health care and the Troubled Asset Relief Program, for example) and explaining what he would do with a re-elected Democratic majority to spur growth.

Throughout the year, we have been treated to Obama-led attacks on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh, Congressman Joe Barton (for his odd apology to BP), John Boehner (for seeking the speakership — or was it something about an ant?) and Fox News (for everything). Suitable Democratic targets in some cases, perhaps, but not worth the time of a busy Commander in Chief.

 As Morrissey notes, it's not like we didn't try to tell you.

(More at Memeorandum)