Brain Dead And In A Persistent Vegetative State

That’s the best description of the Democrats at yesterday’s dog and pony show.  I’ve been soaring through The Ether on a ship made of cleavage to find the most insightful analysis and commentary for your edification…

-Calling yesterday’s episode of The Biggest Loser ‘Oba-Kabuki’ Theater, Michelle Malkin dedicates her column to coverage of the event.  She was not, shall we say, impressed with our Fearless Leader’s performance:

The Oba-Kabuki health care show at Blair House kicked off with a big lie on Thursday morning – and it all went downhill from there. The taxpayer-funded infomercial backfired by exposing the president’s thin skin, the Democrats’ naked disingenuousness, and the ruling majority’s allergies to political and policy realities.

…

For his part, President Obama responded with one part pique and two parts diffidence. After the summit lunch break, Republicans pushed the reconciliation issue again in the face of the Democrats’ refusal to disavow the short-circuiting of the deliberative process. “The American people,” an annoyed Obama asserted, “are not all that interested in procedures inside the Senate.” Oh, really? A new USAToday/Gallup poll reports that 52 percent of Americans oppose using the procedural maneuver to pass the health care bill in the Senate on 51 votes rather than the 60 votes required to end any filibuster.

…

When he wasn’t cutting off Republicans who stuck to budget specifics and cited legislative page numbers and language instead of treacly, sob-story anecdotes involving dentures and gall stones, President Obama was filibustering the talk-a-thon away by invoking his daughters, rambling on about auto insurance, and sniping at former GOP presidential rival John McCain. “We’re not campaigning anymore,” lectured the perpetual campaigner-in-chief.

After ostentatiously disputing the GOP’s claims that health care premiums would rise under his plan, Obama walked it back. Confronted with more GOP pushback on the failure of Demcare to control costs, Obama told GOP Rep. Paul Ryan that he’d rather not “get bogged down in numbers.” Not numbers that he couldn’t cook on the spot without staff consultation, anyway.

Obama and the Democrats labored mightily to create the illusion of almost-there bipartisanship by repeatedly telling disagreeing Republicans that “we don’t disagree” and “there’s not a lot of difference” between us. But the dogs weren’t riding the ponies in this show.

How dare the tribunes question the Divine Julius Obamacus Caesar!

-Stacy McCain has a good posting up on how the issue of abortion and the way our Doctor 666-O is mishandling it, is causing mucho problems for the passage of the bill.

-In another posting from this morning, Stacy reveals the big problem the Leftists now face and offers some very important advice to The Stupid Party:

The big take-away is that Democrats can’t depend on Obama’s magic to solve all their political problems. Republicans are no longer afraid to stand up to The One, and polls indicate that the GOP’s status as the “Party of No” is actually a winner.

“No” is good. People like “no.” Go with “no.”

That should be the rallying cry that ends every meeting of GOP organizations, at every level, throughout the land: GO WITH ‘NO’!

–Jonah Goldberg understands our Fearless Leader very well [perhaps because he wrote a book whose revised edition will have to feature him prominently]:

It seems that I wasn’t alone in finding Obama increasingly un-charming as the event unfolded yesterday. Even Dana Milbank notes that Obama ultimately came across as a bit of a condescending, well, jerk. Here’s Michael Gerson: “President Obama, as usual, was fluent, professorial and occasionally prickly. Some are impressed by the president’s informed, academic manner. Others (myself included) find an annoying condescension in Obama’s never-ending seminar.”

Obama’s habit of deciding what is a serious point and what are mere “talking points,” started out seeming like an attempt at fairness but ultimately revealed itself to be one of the more grating aspects of his personality and his philosophy (It’s worth noting that many points become talking points because they are such good points!). After awhile, it seemed Obama deemed many talking points to be illegitimate simply because they were inconvenient to his argument.

This is not news to certain people who have greater immunity to his charms. Obama has a very thin skin when it comes to disagreement. He has a Fox News obsession. At campaign style events, Obama has insisted that he doesn’t want to “hear any talk” from the people who “created this mess” or some such. Remember his call for a “new declaration of independence not just in our nation, but in our own lives – from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry.” Translation: Ideological objections to what I want to do are akin to bigotry and stupidity.

‘Grating aspects of his personality’…hmmm…well, Barry O is rather cheesy.

-On Hugh Hewitt’s show last night, Mark Steyn made it clear that he was not impressed with King Barack The Unready:

HEWITT: Jennifer Rubin has summed up over at Commentary, talking about the fact that he was simply way too condescending, way too unprepared, belittling at times, not, I’m quoting here, “not a sunny, magnanimous president, more Jimmy Carter than Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan,” and he doesn’t have a good case. I mean…

STEYN: Oh, no, no. And I think tonally, and this is why I didn’t watch it for long, because I think most people won’t have watched it for long, but they will have got the tone of it. He was too condescending. The president of the United States is not the king of Saudi Arabia. And there was something wrong about the whole setup, where you had well-informed representatives and senators making good point, which he would then bat down and move on, when it was obvious that the senator of the congressman had something to say. Now I don’t see why senators and congressmen should actually put up with that condescension. I’ve had the privilege of being in group sessions with the president of the United States. And the president of the United States didn’t tell me that my time was up and I couldn’t respond to the point he’d made. I’ve been at Buckingham Palace. And while the conversation can be a little more stilted there, because it is a monarchical setting, you, it was not as condescending. Her Majesty, the Queen, and his Royal Highness, the Duke of Edinburgh, not as condescending to their subjects as Barack Obama is to United States senators and congressmen. That, Jennifer Rubin is absolutely right there. Tonally, it did not project a good thing, a good image for Obama.

-As you might expect, Pundette provides us with great coverage here and here and here and here.  From the latter:

The Democrats came armed with sob stories (some of them, I hope, spurious), and the GOP came armed with facts. Just watch this six-minute tour de force by Rep. Paul Ryan and you’ll know who’s got a handle on the issues.

And by the way, what’s this about? It looks like Obama once purchased auto insurance with a high deductible and still holds a grudge against the company. Grow up and take some responsibility for your own bad decisions.

Ahhh…the Golden Child will never grow-up — his handlers will see to that.

-The intrepid Smitty risked all to visit his ‘magic URL’, which hurtles him into the future for a bit with no assurance of return, and brings back this news item from the soon-to-be:

Unprecedented Move: President Obama Accepts Own Healthcare Bill In Signing Statement

by Sissypuss, the Bailout Kitty

In an historic move, President Obama today said “I won,” as he signed his own suggested bill into law. “Well, we could have gone to the mat with reconciliation,” mused Mr. Obama, “but I figured it would help the party out if I just sort of dove on the grenade. Those obstructionist Republicans are out to ruin everything. Once we just get all of this in place, I think that the people will come around to my way of thinking and re-elect Democrats in 2010, and me in 2012. And if it looks like the people are having trouble getting on board, well, we’ll be doing everything we can to make sure nothing unfortunate happens to their car, their health, their taxes, their internet, their housing , their food, you get the idea. Running this country is a tough, complex job, and it would really be much smoother if everyone was on the same team, if you know what I mean, and I think you do….

Its his [Chicago] way, or the highway.  Thanks, Smitty.

-Now a pictorial dispatch from the Summit…

President Obama walks in to the Summit.

‘Perhaps, if I throw one of my magical, mystical boogers at Paul Ryan, he’ll STFU’.

‘Oh, man, I really gotta pass some gas — arugula and brie always do it to me.  I know: I’ll let go a ‘silent killer’ and, when everybody looks this way, I’ll make like I smell it too, and blame in on that old f–k Biden.’