« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

I guess Obama knows about the Tea Parties *now*.

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." - M. Gandhi

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 29th, 2009 at 03:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

[UPDATE] “Say what you will about George W. Bush, he had a skin whose thickness wasn’t measured in Planck lengths.” I really wish that I had written that.

Because he’s sounding just a little bit self-conscious on the subject:

Obama targets tea bags at town hall

At his 100th-day town hall meeting in St. Louis Wednesday, President Barack Obama took direct aim at the anti-tax “tea party” demonstrations that have cropped up over the last month and took a veiled shot at the Fox News Channel, the cable news network closely associated with the protests.

[snip]

“Those of you who are watching certain news channels on which I’m not very popular, and you see folks waving tea bags around, Obama said, “let me just remind them that I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term, how we are going to stabilize Social Security.”

See also (originally noted via FullosseousFlap’s Dental Blog) the video below the fold:

He’s not really all that gracious when it comes to dealing with people that don’t already love him, is he? Kind of smirky, with a faint flavor of exasperation. But perhaps I’m just being mean and cynical: if you really want to have a conversation on our financial situation, Mr. President, that’d be great. Can we start with this?


(The Foundry)

As in, which idiot convinced you that this was a good idea?

Moe Lane

PS: If you don’t want to answer now, maybe you’ll feel like answering in September.


09.12.09 National Taxpayer Protest

Organized protesting is kind of fun, isn’t it? I can see where the Right might decide that we have a taste for it. Well, at least a taste for the kind that actually does something with it. The Activist Left’s habit of using the practice to indulge in synchronized mass-onanism doesn’t really appeal.

Crossposted at Moe Lane.

Tags: , , ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • progressivelibertarian

    Could you please correct that?

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    nt

  • paulincolo

    I think the activism and marches may be the only way to get the message through since we aren’t invited to those media dinners with the administration.

    However, I don’t much like the graphic that was chosen for the march, it seems a little soviet. I would much prefer to have those hands holding up the middle finger.

  • rfpzzzzz

    So Obama gives Chavez a bro shake and demeans U.S. citizens…so I guess he talks to certain “enemies” but talks about others , usually behind their back….wonderful leader !

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    He’s really going to blow up. When that happens there won’t be any more cover or excuses for the tyrant in the making.

  • USNJIMRET

    “anywhere, anytime” to have a ‘conversation’ with Senator McCain about things they disagreed on.
    Don’t recall that the ‘conversation’ ever came to pass.
    Or did I miss something?

  • progressivelibertarian

    n/t

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    …first you have to get the mule’s attention.

    The idea here – I think – is to get and keep the attention of the forces of reaction by co-opting their own iconic imagery; this will encourage them to make heavy-handed attempts at suppression of the movement, which will both: alienate them from the populace in general; and cause a rift with the more progressive* and perceptive elements from their own faction. The latter we can then draw into the movement in general, so that we can begin the process of demonstrating to them where their own class interest actually lies. A true popular front seems the best way to effect broad, cross-class change: certainly it’s better than the fake-populist techniques being attempted by the reactionaries over on the Left…

    Moe Lane

    *I use ‘progressive’ in its proper sense here, of course; not as a synonym for the reactionaries and divisionists that make up the bulk of the Activist Left.

  • $peciallist

    I heard some clips on the radio where he could have used some cheese with his Whine…

  • rsrob

    He would find a more receptive audience with the right if he stopped saying things like this or similar utterances such as “I won”. He will continue to be the chosen President for 56% of voters….until of course the honeymoon period is over as Dick Morris suggests.

    See http://thehill.com/dick-morris/obama-sows-seeds-of-demise-2009-04-28.html

  • izoneguy

    Bring it ON!!

    Let’s Roll!!!!!

  • JadedByPolitics

    ….

  • Old_Crow

    Symptoms are:
    Uncontrolled ego.
    Narcissist world view.
    Inability to admit to making mistakes.
    Limited intellect, inability to comprehend alternate viewpoints.

  • JadedByPolitics

    working to pay my taxes to a tax cheat my apoligies!

  • JoeG

    If you don’t know what the term means, google it.

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    to do just that? ;-)

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    to do just that? ;-)

  • techsan

    n/t

  • bobojake

    and you won’t show up. You always distort the truth obama. my Grandpappie called that lying.
    The last President that said I am not lying and will tell you the truth was Richard Nixon. Maybe obama you should follow Nixons lead. RESIGN

  • skorrent1

    800 billion is “just a fraction of the overall problem that we’ve got,” but 100 million in proposed “cuts” is a great start worth bragging about. Hoookaay?

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    this would be so laughable, if there were not so many darn dumb folks out there that heard that $100M BS and thought – Wow, he did mean he wants to reduce spending…

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    aggitating gives it a nice Southern ring… but you coulda dropped the “g”, too.

  • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com LJ “Beaglescout” Miller

    And we are able to wage a class war against them demonstrating that the “progressives” and Democrats are the ones with false consciousness, who refuse to examine the results of their ideology. Results testing is what will destroy them, because it demonstrates the truth of the bankruptcy of their position.

  • olsmithie

    I understand King George was the south end of north bound mule too, but we sent his guys packing.

    Good piece, Moe

    .Regards

    I was thinking of a whiney Che’ Obama baby in diapers pitching a fit graphic to go here. More later

  • http://www.ssce.net/Web-Articles/Web-articles-indexed-authors.html#authors-l JLenardDetroit

    Plan to attend a TEApeat July 4, 9/12, Thanksgiving, etc…

    ReTeaParty (for 4th of July) site

    Contact the other sites and urge them to organize for the subsequent dates also:
    09/12/09 DC Tax Protest
    Tax Day Tea Party site with Daily email update signup
    Tea Party Revolution site
    FreedomWorks

  • Marcus_Traianus

    “I am happy to have a serious conversation about how we are going to cut our health care costs down over the long term,”

    -No you are not. You have slipped funding into every bill that was shielded from scrutiny or representative discussion. That’s a rather undemocratic “debate”. Where I come from, that tactic is called usually called tyrranical or disengenuous mendacity.

    - Yes, costs will be driven down by cutting services, denying treatments, cutting the ability for private providers to offer an alternative and using taxpayer money to subsidize everyone including non-citizens. Cut costs, indeed.

    ” how we are going to stabilize Social Security.?

    - Oh yes, by moving out the retirement age, cutting payments, making people pay more and denying the “rich” access to money they already paid. I suppose you also now intend to fully fund this unfunded liability (that would close the cell door on any corporation) which on any other planet would surpass the Madoff Ponzi scheme? Really? More borrowing from the Treasury and taxpayers? I didn’t think there was anything left.

    Email me and we can have that debate. Although you might want to make it a phone call, lest you publicly embarrass yourself.

  • paulincolo

    going to out-alinsky the alinskyites. It’s possible, I suppose I’ll have to think about it, but you may be right in that Obama attacking the tea parties, he may be recognizing a true grass roots organization growing and aligning against him (alinsky rules #1 and #4).

  • Kyle-MI

    Double the price of a product and then put it on sale for 25% off. Obama and the Democrats have jacked up spending and the deficit so much that any reduction can be spun as a cut. Also keep in mind that Democrats define cutting as spending less than what you were planning. For example, if you planned to increase spending by 50% but only increased it by 40%, you have just made a Democratic cut of 10%.

  • antisocial

    because he is getting testy. Tea Parties have had an impact. We need to keep the pressure on.

    We just got rid of Specter.

  • Praying

    The difference between a 50% cut and a 40% cut is 20% (you’re cutting 4/5 of what you originally planned, or saving 1/5, or 20%)

    But who can be expected to do math when there are more zeros in this budget than fit on most calculators!

    Crazy Eyes

  • aesthete

    is not that he disagrees with the tea partiers’ ideology–that’s to be expected from one who holds his views, and I don’t begrudge him that (though I do oppose the logical conclusions of that viewpoint)–no, what is enlightening (though sadly, not surprising) about his response is how angry, bitter, and, yes, divisive it is.

    From evoking the “tea bag” pejorative, to implying that this “revolt” is based on a personal or partisan dislike, to insinuating that the concerns brought forward are juvenile, as well as general body language and vocal inflections, it seems that this is more than a simple disagreement for him, and that he genuinely disdains the people on the other side of the divide, and not just the political system that they espouse. He is going out of the way to attack the upstanding Americans involved in these protests, rather than just sticking to attacking the ideas behind the protests.

    Though I don’t like making these comparisions, I think that it is telling that Pres. Obama didn’t have such a reaction when meeting with leaders like Chavez and Ortega. I don’t know if this is because he doesn’t care about their transgressions, or if it is that he hid his objections behind a mask of “politeness”, but I wish that he had extended the same courtesy to his fellow countrymen.

  • aesthete

    is not that he disagrees with the tea partiers’ ideology–that’s to be expected from one who holds his views, and I don’t begrudge him that (though I do oppose the logical conclusions of that viewpoint)–no, what is enlightening (though sadly, not surprising) about his response is how angry, bitter, and, yes, divisive it is.

    From evoking the “tea bag” pejorative, to implying that this “revolt” is based on a personal or partisan dislike, to insinuating that the concerns brought forward are juvenile, as well as general body language and vocal inflections, it seems that this is more than a simple disagreement for him, and that he genuinely disdains the people on the other side of the divide, and not just the political system that they espouse. He is going out of the way to attack the upstanding Americans involved in these protests, rather than just sticking to attacking the ideas behind the protests.

    Though I don’t like making these comparisions, I think that it is telling that Pres. Obama didn’t have such a reaction when meeting with leaders like Chavez and Ortega. I don’t know if this is because he doesn’t care about their transgressions, or if it is that he hid his objections behind a mask of “politeness”, but I wish that he had extended the same courtesy to his fellow countrymen.

  • secondpatriot76

    Obama should get used to the tea bags he will see a lot of them over the next four years

  • http://beaglescout.wordpress.com LJ “Beaglescout” Miller

    They say tea bagger. They own it. That phrase alone lays the black, rotten heart of their perversity open for anyone with eyes to see.

    If they call you a tea bagger, you call them a disgusting pervert throwing tantrums over their adolescent obsessions. Tell them when they grow up you hope they stop practicing the kind of language that a prostitute would use. You have to shock them with your attack. Get as obscene and scatalogical as you feel comfortable with. Rock them back on their heels. Don’t give them a chance to recover. Keep on chewing them a new one and then turn and leave. Don’t give them a chance to recover or retaliate. Make them feel bad about their own crap. That is the only thing that will get them to change it.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    Just a little grit in the gears.

  • papalee

    You have said it as it should we and told all of us exactly what we have to do when we run into these folk with both their brains and hearts in the gutter.

  • papalee

    I went through everyone and signed myself up for the revolution. I hope we can recruit a few million people for this and do it so quickly that D.C. begins to tremble!

  • peg_c

    His disdain and outright contempt for normal Americans is what is so shocking and bewildering. The Tea Parties will only grow bigger and stronger fueled by his arrogance and dismissive attitude.

    There has never been an American president so utterly devoid of love for his country and his people, and in fact so full of contempt and loathing. Well, what goes around comes around. For some of us, sooner, for some of us, later. For those of us who did not vote for this man because we knew exactly what he was, there is a feeling of righteousness flavored with an overwhelming sadness. Those who did vote for him – at least some of them – will sooner or later come face to face with the abject horror of what they have done. I still think he is cruising for the most vicious backlash ever.

  • 1stRichard

    At what point does it become ?We the Government? and no longer ?We the People?? Don?t be fooled in to thinking this is about the rich and the poor because the haves and the have not are now between the people and the government. The real threat comes from our own government and its own corporate greed. Higher taxes, regulations, fees, all have pushed out individual private capitalism and individual opportunity. These are individual freedoms as in you and me that are about to be lost. Manufacturing across the nation has dropped to its lowest levels and so has your jobs in response to this government monopolization. Government was never intended to be the largest employer and it must never be allowed to be the largest employer. We have separation of church and state for a reason, fear of oppression. The same applies to our government becoming a corporation, a self serving institution and oppressor.

    Where is the tipping point in this, where will all the people start to revolt because they found nothing remaining? The revolt is here and it is growing?.

  • arel

    and he has shown the American people exactly what he is an extreme liberal elitist. He has shown disrespect for those he is supposed to represent. He isn’t the POTUS of just those that voted him into office and it is time he matured and stops acting like a celebrity. He grand stands and pokes fun at the many Americans that are against all these taxes that he proposing in this budget of his because he isn’t for America or its citizens he is for Obama and his agenda only. What he is doing is a slap in the face to many Americans and of our founding fathers. Maybe he doesn’t remember being educated on the original tea party.
    I cringe every time he comes on tv which seems to be all the time.

  • kweiss01

    Would that conversation about health care be anything like the conversation we had before the so-called “Stimulus” bill was passed? I don’t recall being able to read it before the bill’s passage (and you’d be hard pressed to find a congressman who read it either). Or wait, maybe he’s talking about the conversation we had before the massive government budget was passed? Oh, right… We didn’t have a discussion before that either, unless by “conversation” Obama means telling us, “I won.”

  • pascasha

    Wow! I sat mouth agape when watching this. Instead of taking the opportunity to discuss why we were mistaken about his agenda he belittles concerned citizens. Has a president EVER done that before? I am beholden as an American Citizen to respect the office of the US President. But as an American Patriot, I am finding myself at an impass: I despise this man. He has done everything he can to make a position that demands respect little more than that of a movie star.

    How can a President of the United States of America intentionally divide the Country? His intent should be to unify through upholding the Constitution.

  • aesthete

    I could never imagine him discussing a subset of the American people with the hatred and disdain demonstrated in Obama’s statement. Same goes for the two Bushes and Reagan. I think that this is what really bothers me about this reply, and Obama’s candidacy in general — those who disagree with him aren’t just wrong; they are stupid, evil and are, at best, a distasteful element of American society to be reluctantly tolerated, and at worst, a group to be marginalized and “dealt with” through various means. I’m afraid that I’m leaning towards the latter.

  • Achance

    who came up in the Jim Crow Era and saw the Civil Rights Movement first hand, is that if they had been born Black, there is no doubt they’d be mean. Ironically, BHO seems to have had the “Black Experience” second hand but seems to believe he has the right to the chip on his shoulder that Blacks from other backgrounds can, I think, legitimately claim, and like many who are faking something, he has to do it all the more strongly.