Dan Collins - who has by the way moved Piece of Work In Progress: update your links - has a post about the opposition to the President that shouldn’t be excerpted, but must be.  A taste:

…they get stonewalled at town halls packed deliberately with union supporters, or find that their Representative has literally decided to phone the meeting in, and they are accused of being astroturfed, even as they watch people from out of state bused in to support the health care fiasco.  They see Lyndon LaRouche wackos carrying Obama Nazi signs characterized as right-wingers.  They hear that their concerns are those of a small and demented minority.  They see videos cropped to make it seem as though they’re racists. They are told that their opposition to Obama’s policies springs from racism on talk shows and in editorials.  They receive unsolicited emails from Axelrod after being told that their information’s not being kept by the White House, and then it’s blamed on advocacy groups across a broad political spectrum.  They recall that there were 8 years of BusHitler rhetoric that went unchallenged in the MSM, which suddenly is up in arms about the extraordinary incivility of such comparisons.

[snip]

Oh, yeah, they’re angry.  But it’s not because they’re stupid.  It’s because “Trust us; we despise you” isn’t really very civil, is it?

Read the whole thing, and let me add one more of my own:

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The Obamobile is coming to a dealer showroom near you. Well, it may not actually be that near to you, now that GM (Government Motors) and CFUG (Chrysler-FIAT-UAW-Government) are throwing so many of their dealers under the bus. Say, this is a hybrid bus, isn’t it, citizen? But I digress. It’s only those in rural areas clinging to their guns and bibles who will have to drive to another town to find a dealer. But that’s their problem, citizen. The  former Big Three Detroit automakers are now right where they deserve to be - under the thumb of The One who says, “I won!”

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I would quibble with the results here: it implies that the notion that we’ve already done too much already to fix the economy isn’t a legitimate answer. Still, this report will not be welcome news for the administration:

52% Worry Government Will Do Too Much to Fix Economy

[snip]

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 52% of the nation’s Likely Voters now worry that the government will do too much. That’s up from 50% a month ago and 43% in mid-February. It’s the highest level of concern measured since Barack Obama was elected president.

The number who worry that the government will do too little has fallen sharply to 31%. That’s down nine points from 40% a month ago and 12 points from 43% two months ago.

…which is only fitting. When the economy went into a tailspin last fall, the current administration presented itself as the best choice to repair our financial problems. When they were elected, the expectation was that they would actually engage in activities that would repair our financial problems, and in a nonpartisan, inclusive manner. Instead, we got: Never Waste A Crisis. I Won. The Democratic Party’s Pork Wish List. It’s Not Our Fault. Tax Hikes On The Lower Class*. The Great Expanding Budget Deficit. Let’s Repeat That Last One Again. One More Time, So That It Sinks In.

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Now we know why Barack Obama apparently expected a big bipartisan vote for the c___ sandwich. He figured that once he rode a 53% tidal wave to the White House, on a platform specifically calling for:

1. Hope; and,
2. Change,

that there was no way Republicans would actually vote against a trillion dollar payoff to liberal constituencies. He apparently didn’t believe all that Democratic rhetoric about how Republicans in Congress are getting more and more conservative, because he thought that would be so awestruck by him that they would eagerly vote for a massive expansion of the government. So when he promised to welcome their ideas, and incorporate good ones into his ’stimulus,’ he meant ‘other ideas for government expansion that we Democrats didn’t think of yet.’ He expected Republicans to suddenly embrace the Democratic agenda because he won; you know, just like the Democrats did in 2001 and 2005.

How else do you explain this (from yesterday’s White House press briefing):

MSNBC’S CHUCK TODD: “Robert, you’ve said just now actually in an answer to one of the questions or the President has said if he hears some good ideas from the Republicans, he’s all for it. Has there been a good idea from a Republican that he is now trumpeting into this stimulus packet?”

GIBBS: “Well, I think the President talked with Senator Snowe and Senator Collins yesterday.”

TODD: “Was there specific like okay, that’s a good idea, let’s do it?”

GIBBS: “I have not gotten from him that. I know that he believes that and stated over the course of the negotiations that there are things that he didn’t, while good policy, didn’t believe should be in the bill. And I think he is watching what is And I think he is watching what is going on in the Senate in order to see where the process moves this along.”

Just feel the bipartisan warmth.

I leave you with a portion of Obama’s speech to House Democrats yesterday, reminding them ‘I Won.:

This is the column.

My response?

So pass it today, already. You won, remember?

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

Feel free to check my math:

Dems warn leaders to resume regular order

A group of more than 50 House Democrats has penned a letter to Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) imploring him to “restore this institution” and see that the House returns to a “regular order” process of legislating.

The letter, signed by a large number of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition and the centrist New Democratic Coalition, has not yet been sent. Members are still gathering signatures in an effort to send the strongest signal possible to all top House Democrats that the caucus is up in arms over the top-down method of legislating employed by Democrats since late last year.

Hoyer, and not Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), was chosen as the recipient not because he is viewed as the prime enemy, but “because this group has no better friend in this fight” than the majority leader — who is widely respected across the ideological spectrum for his adherence to rules and procedures — an aide said.

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I would like to thank both the President of the United States of America, and the liberal Democratic group Americans United for Change, for their plans to remind three critical swing states that the Democratic Party is pushing a debt package that only 42% - and dropping - of the country believes in, and that a majority of independent voters oppose.  But there’s something even odder about this strategy:

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President Obama wants to delay the long-announced, long-planned, long-desired-by-first-responders transition from analog to digital television broadcasts. By replacing the old, large-bandwidth-consuming NTSC standard with the new, sharper, narrow-bandwidth ATSC, we create lots of room in the radio spectrum for other broadcasts, including those by firefighters, police, and other public safety workers.

However Obama wants to delay it for a few months, claiming that people aren’t ready. This despite the fact that anyone with cable or satellite is unaffected, vouchers for free set-top boxes have been around for months, and every broadcast station has been warning about the transition. The President thinks we’re idiots, it seems.

No matter, the Senate agreed and passed a bill implementing his wishes unanimously. On it went to the House for another easy pass? Not so fast. Democrats got confident and tried to do a quick-and-easy passage according to the suspension of the rules procedure. That procedure bypasses the normal process but requires a supermajority vote.

The Obama delay bill did not get that supermajority vote. It got a majority, but to pass notwithstanding the rules it needed significant Republican support. 258-168 was the final vote, but 290 were needed for passage.

Let’s cheer the House Republican Caucus for a job well done. He won. He doesn’t need us, remember?

(Via Instapundit) I am not exaggerating. We are dealing with the real world now, and in the real world you do not cavalierly and abruptly disrupt groups providing vitally critical medical assistance without ill result:

During Obama’s transition, Dr. Mark Dybul was initially asked to stay on as the coordinator of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for several months until a replacement could be found and confirmed. Because Dybul was the main architect of the program and one of its guiding visionaries, few were surprised by the offer. With Ambassador Randall Tobias, Dybul organized the most staggeringly successful foreign assistance effort since the Marshall Plan — eventually helping support lifesaving AIDS therapy for more than 2 million people.

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Or, as Heritage put it, “The Pelosi-Reid-Obama Debt Plan”. Anyway, Politico reports:

President Barack Obama is coming to the Capitol this afternoon to curry favor with congressional Republicans. But it appears GOP leaders have already made up their minds to oppose his $825 billion stimulus plan.

House Republican Leader John A. Boehner and his No. 2, Whip Eric Cantor, told their rank-and-file members Tuesday morning during a closed-door meeting to oppose the bill when it comes to the floor Wednesday, according to an aide familiar with the discussion. Boehner told members that he’s voting against the stimulus, and Cantor told the assembled Republicans that there wasn’t any reason for them to support the measure, according to another person in the room. Cantor and his whip team are going to urge GOP members to oppose it.

In a nod to the president, Boehner did point out that this is the third time that Obama has met with Republican leaders, compared with the zero meetings they’ve held with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — a now-familiar refrain from Republicans in the House. But Obama’s diplomacy clearly isn’t buying any votes yet.

(H/T: Instapundit) Apparently, “I won.” counts as diplomacy these days.

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The Economist notices the hypocrisy of Krugman & Co. After eight years of denouncing the “bitterness” and “polarization” and “divisiveness” that supposedly came down the pipeline from 1600 Penn. Ave., Krugman & Co. now want more of it.

The Internet has a long memory and eventually, the electoral worm will turn. When it does, Krugman’s words may well be remembered by those who currently “huff and puff.” Of course, one naturally expects that by then, Krugman will rediscover the sweet, sweet joys of bipartisanship and decry as “bitter,” “polarizing” and “divisive” the Republicans who would act the way he is encouraging the Obama Administration to act now.

I suppose that this kind of hypocrisy must really be blatant if the mainstream media has picked up on it so quickly and is so eager to denounce it. The hypocrites in question are really pieces of work, aren’t they? One almost thinks that they believe Google does not exist and some form of mass contagion has wiped out the memory of just about every person in the country.

(Via Glenn Reynolds) Smoothness. Professionalism. Competence.

Fire alarms.

Shortly after 4 p.m., the stench of smoke began filtering back to the press booths in the White House.

[snip]

None other than Deputy Press Secretary Bill Burton who — on his third day in the White House — was still having a little trouble working the door.

Trying to get into the briefing room from the outside, Burton inadvertently short circuited the electronic door opener, causing small plumes of smoke to fill into the inside of the briefing room.

Crossposted on Moe Lane.