I Really Like This Guy

Sometimes, I feel like this picture needs more exposure:



In recent days, Democrats were bemoaning how President Obama has seemed to be bending over backwards to cater to Republicans in an effort for bi-partisanship over getting a stimulus bill passed. The GOP has responded as you'd expect - they've demanded tax cuts and nothing else, as if the last eight years haven't shown that this is resoundingly bad policy. (How on earth is a tax cut ALONE going to help an out-of-work steel worker? By giving his ex-bosses more money so that they can presumably create that old job again? The idiocy and short-sightedness here is jarring.)

But, as he proved during the entire election season, you do not mess with the Obama. Today, he penned an Op/Ed in the Washington Post (just like George W. Bush did all the time when-- oh, right), and the juicy parts are right here:

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education. And it's a strategy that will be implemented with unprecedented transparency and accountability, so Americans know where their tax dollars are going and how they are being spent.

In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis -- the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.

Bold font mine. Sure, this is a bit hyperbolic, but remember, the people he's been listening to have been claiming that this bill is creating socialism, that any government spending at all is a problem (Senate Republicans voted 36-4 last night to replace the stimulus bill with a bill of nothing but tax cuts...) and that the 2% of the bill they don't like is cause to reject the whole thing and let the sinking economy sort itself out. The new head of the GOP, Michael Steele, stated that the government has never created a single job. Except, of course, his own job just a few days ago and the tens of thousands of employees of the government.

These people are nitwits, and the President just pwned them.

Good times, good times.