pandemerica

... or how i stopped worrying and learned to love the virus.

"i make deals. it's what i do."

the party's over

tulsa was shaping up to be a horror show masquerading as the largest human trial in the history of medicine masquerading as a hate rally masquerading as a campaign opener:

sadly, trump's running low on guinea pigs:

"win so much, you're gonna be so sick"

four years ago:

"we're gonna win so much, you're gonna be so sick and tired of winning."

(donald trump, may 26, 2016)

not the civil war they dreamt of

hostage-taking 101: time is not on your side! — especially when your confederates chase different goals, expect different ransoms, serve different masters and respond differently to stress. should the theatrics play out too long, hands at each others' throats may be your only reward ...

salon: appearing on MSNBC on friday, congressman peter king continued his epic verbal assault on ted cruz — and, to a lesser extent, rand paul — by describing the texas senator as a "RINO" (republican in name only) and a "fraud."

speaking with MSNBC's andrea mitchell, king called the ongoing government shutdown "the strategy of ted cruz" and wondered aloud "why more republicans around the country didn't join me in denouncing ted cruz" before the shutdown began. "we cannot allow our party to be taken over by the likes of ted cruz and rand paul," king continued, describing cruz and paul as "isolationists" and "RINOs" who "don't represent traditional republican principles."

"ted cruz, what he did here, was lead the party into a dead end with no strategy, somehow convincing a number of house republicans that we just sent this to through senate as far as defunding and closing down the government, he would manage to get harry reid and president obama to back down," said king. "he never had a plan. it was fraudulent from the start. and we have to cut this guy off now."

TPM: mccain's appearance on fox came shortly after sen. ted cruz (R-TX), the leader of the movement to defund the health care law, spoke at the values voter summit. maccallum asked mccain how he felt about cruz "representing" republicans at a meeting scheduled for friday at the white house.

"first of all, martha, please, he's not representing us there" ...

daily kos: [tex rep louis gohmert:] "when it comes to the shutdown that's going on, i heard just before i came some senator from arizona, uh, a guy that liked qaddafi before he wanted to bomb him, a guy that liked mubarak before he wanted him out, a guy that's been to syria and supported al qaeda and rebels, but he was saying today the shutdown has been a fool's errand. and i agree with him. the president and harry reid should not have shut this government down!"

TPM: tensions are flaring between house and senate republicans over how to defuse the crisis ahead of an oct. 17 debt ceiling deadline. house GOP members expressed concerns during a private saturday meeting that the senate GOP would undercut and jam them by striking a deal with president barack obama that conservatives dislike.

... "they're trying to cut the house out, and trying to jam us with the senate," a fired-up [WI rep. paul] ryan told reporters after the GOP meeting. "we're not going to roll over and take that."

breitbart: on his radio show on friday, fox news host sean hannity said house speaker john boehner (R-OH), along with the rest of the republican leadership in the house, had to be replaced.

"i do think leadership in the house needs to change," hannity said. "i don't think john boehner is equipped for the job. i don't think he has the stomach to negotiate. i don't think he has the ability to communicate the positive, solution-oriented vision for the country."

... he said the GOP has a "communications problem" that has been reflected in the party's bad poll numbers.

hannity also ripped republican leaders in washington for "alienating" the tea party. hannity named senators like john mccain (R-AZ) and bob corker (R-TN) for being the top offenders and said their "unwillingness to stand strong" and constant bashing of the tea party is "irritating every conservative i know."

AP: "we're not saying obama is right. we're saying what republicans are doing is wrong," said matt cox, a former executive director of ohio's cuyahoga county GOP.

TPM: erick erickson, prominent conservative blogger, said on his blog friday that he will be donating to the primary opponents of house speaker john boehner (R-OH) and senate minority leader mitch mcconnell (R-KY) because of the way both leaders are approaching negotiations on the continuing resolution and debt ceiling.

"republican leaders in washington, DC are signaling they will cave on the fight against obamacare," erickson wrote. "GOP leaders, by caving, are signaling they want us to primary them."

erickson blamed the GOP's sinking approval ratings on boehner and other republican leaders.

"[n]ow that john boehner and the orange man group of capitol hill are the faces of the GOP, obamacare's popularity is going back up and the GOP's popularity is going back down," erickson wrote.

redState: but john boehner, eric cantor, mitch mcconnell, and john cornyn will ensure that obamacare is fully funded and give the american public no delay like businesses have.

in doing so, they will sow the seeds of a real third party movement that will fully divide the republican party.

washington post: conservative groups that advocated for a standoff spoke openly about their motives. at a breakfast with reporters wednesday, michael needham, chief executive of the conservative group heritage action, freely admitted that he was "pretty optimistic" that we will soon see a crackup of the old republican order.

thinkProgress: as the government shutdown enters its eleventh day and the nation races towards a possible default, a growing number of republican lawmakers, leaders, and voters are publicly blaming congressional republicans for the budget impasse. ...

"it's time for someone to act like a grown-up in this process," former new hampshire gov. john sununu (R) told the associated press. michigan gov. rick snyder (R) agreed, remarking on monday that "this is not how we should operate. it shouldn't be about people fighting and yelling.' "the bottom line is we need that money in our economy to save rural hospitals and jobs in the rural areas," arizona gov. jan brewer (R) told the arizona daily star on thursday, criticizing the GOP'e effort to defund the affordable care act.

the criticism comes as an associated press-GfK poll released wednesday showed that "three-quarters of republicans nationally said their party in congress deserves a moderate degree or most of the blame for the shutdown" ...

in yet another sign of trouble for the GOP, business interests are also showing signs of discontent, signaling a possible rift with republicans ahead of the 2014 mid-term elections.

iowa republicans "are recruiting a pro-business republican to challenge six-term conservative rep. steve king (R), a leader in the push to defund the health care law," the associated press reports and party establishment leaders in michigan are threatening to recruit and fund challengers to rep. justin amash (R) and other tea party aligned candidates.

TNR: "the business community has got to stand up and say we are not going to back the most self-described conservative candidate. we are going to back the candidates that are the most rational," says john feehery, a former aide to delay and hastert who is now president of quinn gillespie & associates, a washington lobbying firm.

what washington business lobbyists say on-the-record about the house republicans and about tea party activists pales before what they are willing to say if their names aren't used. one former republican staffer says of the anti-establishment groups, "they want to go in and fuck shit up. these non-corporate non-establishmentarian guys — that is exactly what they are doing. and the problem with that is obvious. what next? what happens after you fuck shit up?"

conservatives went looking for fresh plunder from the administration in a raid that was supposed to pit republican vs. democrat — not GOP vs. GOP and certainly not along every conceivable fissure:

house vs. senate.

extreme vs. moderate.

upstart vs. established.

ideology vs. money.

anarchy vs. order.

none of them came prepared for a suddenly resolute president or a unified party behind him. no one expected to run into a veritable stone wall — against which the GOP, to its own horror, seem incapable of thwarting the urge to batter itself delirious, in what historians might one day call the "republican war into irrelevance".

what a difference a week makes

freeperville, oct 4:

lol. the plan is obama caves.

what don’t you understand?

we are on the verge of an historic CONSERVATIVE victory.

what’s not to like?

(by st_thomas_aquinas)

oct 11:

[texas congressman louis] gomert [sic] on beck’s show today, just before noon EST, saying that boehner is now in a meeting with obama, and is “giving up on 98-99% of obamacare, so they [RINOs] can say that they got something from obama.”

so yeah, the cave is in progress.

i guess the NBC/WSJ rush is talking about spooked them.

as beck says, it's time to defund the GOP. tea party candidates only. no collaborators need apply.

(by st_thomas_aquinas)

RINOs = "republicans in name only"

acme wingnuts

u.s. v. g.o.p.

atul gawande @ the new yorker:

this kind of obstructionism has been seen before. after the supreme court’s ruling in brown v. board of education, in 1954, virginia shut down schools in charlottesville, norfolk, and warren county rather than accept black children in white schools. when the courts forced the schools to open, the governor followed a number of other southern states in instituting hurdles such as “pupil placement” reviews, “freedom of choice” plans that provided nothing of the sort, and incessant legal delays. while in some states meaningful progress occurred rapidly, in others it took many years. we face a similar situation with health-care reform.

the akin defense

senate hopeful and gynecological expert todd akin (r-mo) certainly sounds like a another tea party twit today, but tomorrow, who knows?

because akin sounds like he's been reading the jane's defense weekly for female sexual self-defense — "aeon flux: the herodotus file" (1995):

(story by mark mars and eric singer, art by eric canete and peter chung)

predictions

a mere twenty-four hours ago:

guess what is up for today?

first on the news will be: O-BOMB-A-CARE!

next on the news will be: holder won't be holding his job!

what a beautiful day this will be!!!:)

by seekthetruth

the whole law will get tossed because there is not enough pretzel logic on earth to find the mandate constitutional. and there is no severability clause. and there is no way in hell the court is going to wade through a 3000 page bill to try and create one.

the result will be much wailing, crying, and stamping of feet, culminating in a long-range leftist plan to undermine the supreme court (an FDR court packing scheme or something similar). it will become the bush v gore bloody shirt of the next decade.

electorally though it will actually help obama, as it will remove a huge unpopular albatross from around his neck. it will also get the catholic church to shut up about the mandate and many catholics will go back to voting democrat.

by buckeye mcfrog

SCOTUS will strike it down, POTUS will ignore the ruling.

by kosciusko51

by hotlanta mike

obama's responses usually have the flavor of vindictiveness, as in the arizona case. whatever his response, it will have to be an executive order, because most dems in congress just want this thing to go away.

of course, he will lash out verbally at both the republican party and the supreme court, but as to politically effective actions he could take, he may be boxed in. the most politically effective thing he could do would be to graciously accept the supremes' decision, but he won't do that. i hope he tries something, because it's just going to make it worse for his election chances.

by wayoverontheright

i predict there will be much sadness...

by vrwcArea51

me too, but not for us or this grand nation

by bornToBeAmerican

a constitutional crisis is about to be created, and obama, i hope, will be clapped in irons.

by candor7

and the rest, as they say, is history ...

the fluke contraception deception

the numbers are out and in a surprise to no one but conservatives, it turns out that women do not like being called "sluts":

the biggest change came among women under 50. in mid-february, just under half of those voters supported obama. now more than six in 10 do while romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. the president leads him 2-1 in this group.

republicans' traditional strength among men "won't be good enough if we're losing women by nine points or 10 points," says sara taylor fagen, a republican strategist and former political adviser to president george w. bush. "the focus on contraception has not been a good one for us ... and republicans have unfairly taken on water on this issue." (usa today/gallup)

"unfairly"? well, cry me a river ... one which appears to be roaring right through our favorite wingnut watering hole free republic, where you will never find a more wretched hive of chauvinism and misogyny.

and they're wond'ring where all the wimmenfolk went ...

unfortunately, to some women, especially single ones, government is daddy, husband, lover and provider all rolled up into one. (scottinVA)

but isn't that the model wingnut family? (cue "dueling banjos")

women are "wired" that way.

the 'rats and their mentor, satan, knew what they were doing when they destroyed the support structure called "marriage" and "family".

the title should say "boosted by SINGLE AND DIVORCED women voters..." (mrB)

bingo - a lot of the women i know politically are mostly selfish, self centered, ditzes who only care about abortion, birth control, etc. (glockThe Vote)

translation: "they didn't wanna touch my glock!"

why do they keep calling these free contraceptives? someone is paying for them. and are rat women so gullible that they'll vote for a guy who is killing us at the pump, thermostat, grocery store and job market - not to mention the little matter of national security, just to get "free" birth control??? (aria)

if these women don't like romney they sure as heck aren't going to vote for santorum. obama's little birth control scheme seems to be working. i think republicans need to do some intense opposition research into obama's donors. the candidates need to start talking about all the dirt that's been coming out on him. make him look like the crooked chicago politician that he is. (jersey117)

riiiiiight. because in four years nobody's tried that yet ...

the social issues bs makes me want to scream. birth control? FNG really???

women voters in general are easily scammed. (glockThe Vote)

that they are. i'm here to tell you — they're buying this issue hook, line, and sinker. bunches of women i know are convinced that EVIL republicans have only one agenda ...and that is to make birth control ILLEGAL in this country.

i kid you not. they are convinced. rational, otherwise intelligent women. this flat out LIE has worked like a charm.

but, who is surprised. america has and is going down due to this very issue at the heart of it. we've contracepted ourselves so much that we've had to import workers. we have aborted so many we dont' have a tax paying base anymore to support all the elderly OR the freeloading immigrants. radical feminism has done its trick on this country ...and continues to do so, destroying marriage, family, and a strong moral base. why be surprised? many women are in love with themselves and their own power and new-found freedom to screw up their lives with oblivion. (libsRJerks)

repeal the 19th amendment. (sharpRightTurn)

sure glad we gave them the vote. (dagogo redux)

because women vote for appeals to emotion. that is the democrat party's specialty. (longbow1969)

and the GOP's specialty? appeals to idiocy ...

young single women want to go on killing their unborn babies. and now they really believe evil republicans are going to completely ban contraception. the fluke contraception deception worked perfectly. (protectOurFreedom)

tricking rush into a three-day tirade was the easy part. tricking wingnuts into defending him? actually, that was easy too ...

woman — being fooled by snakes since the garden. (bmwcyle)

the "war on women" paying dividends.

dems would never win without the woman voter advantage. (tigerClaws)

alas, the unfairness of it all ...

it won't matter -- those ideological women voters are blind to everything except what they want to see, their "vision". by teasing up reproductive issues, obozo is rattling their chains, they just don't know it.

giving women the vote was a civilizational mistake that will kill the republic. women don't want anything like what men do from government, and the republic was constructed around a male electorate. women's brain processes make them the very, very last people anyone anywhere should want next to the levers of republican government, and that's even allowing for real exceptions like margaret thatcher and sarah palin.

overeducated, barren, man-hating democrat women will turn america into a despotate, and then a wasteland -- like something out of hellboy. (lentulusgracchus)

unlike the patriarchal heaven-on-earth that is saudi arabia, or even afghanistan, eh, lentulus?

now i'm pretty sure that free republic, every dittohead's little patch of heaven on the internet, is by no means men-only. i'm pretty sure freeperville has some members that at least have claimed to be female. i'm pretty sure i can remember reading the praises of these culture-war-hardened survivalists for the fierceness and independence of their mothers, mates and daughters. so where are all the wimmenfolk? none showed up today, or more certainly, no one either female or male showed up to crash this little meeting of the "he-man women haters club":

so if not unfettered misogyny, what kind of hate speech proves simply too intolerable for the neanderthals on this thread?

cut it out psycho. santorum can’t be blamed for splitting the vote, but we know who polls lower than rick with women and he is the one with the second fewest delegates.

so cut the hate. (dforest)

... just leave little ricky alooooone!

good question

ed quillen @ the denver post:

have you ever heard of any campaigning politician, in any other industrial democracy, promising to provide "an american-style health-care system"?

the art of the backdown

nevada gop senate hopeful sue lowden on health care reform:

i think that bartering is really good. those doctors who you pay cash, you can barter, and that would get prices down in a hurry. and i would say go out, go ahead out and pay cash for whatever your medical needs are, and go ahead and barter with your doctor. (apr 6)

i'm telling you that this works. you know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. they would say i'll paint your house. ... i'm not backing down from that system. (apr 19)

i, i, i'm not sure, uh, what to say, as far if it's been dragged out of proportion. ... (apr 28)

the comment i made about bartering was not, and was never intended to be, a policy proposal. (apr 30)

iowa gop house hopeful pat bertroche on immigration reform:

i think we should catch 'em, we should document 'em, make sure we know where they are and where they are going. ... i actually support microchipping them. i can microchip my dog so i can find it. why can't i microchip an illegal? (apr 26)

this idea isn't any more politically dumb than any other one. ... i was trying to call attention to how radical the conversation has become. (apr 29)

i don't support microchipping people, but if it's going to become part of the debate — which was not my intent — then microchipping people is not one of those things that is going to cause long-term cancer problems. (apr 29)

velkomm to der ussa

well, i guess we finally found out, didn't we?

time for some whine and cheese from the usual suspects:

march 21 10:45 pm eastern time: RIP USA.

USSA

the shift from personal liberty to federal tyranny is a done deal.

c-span would not take callers!! we have been silenced!!!

i feel sick. the fact that c-span was not taking callers was telling.

WOLVERINES!

but if obama and his liberal cronies get their way america will be changed forever

what planet r u living on.

they just got their way! no if’s about it.

&*@$, @#&%, %$#@*&^ **** **** ****!!!@!!

nazi piglosi and her comrades heading off to celebrate.

from now on i work as little as possible, and skirt all taxes possible, lets bring this f*cker down.

yes, i now will do only what is "according to my ability" and absolutely no more. welcome to the USSA

we the people are reaping what we have sown in our uninvolvement in this republic. these fascist federal oligarchs (read democrap party) could not rise to such power if we the people had been paying the requisite attention to our sovereign responsibilities.

there were 34 democrats who stood with the republicans in standing up for freedom in america. we should know who they are. because all republicans and democrats who voted for our freedom, should be recognized as patriots.

none of those democrats voted against the bill, they were allowed to vote no to cover their arses. they are ALL scum! eff them all!

i want to say this before my daily prayers. we are totally fu%%ked. it is time for patriots to take charge. pay no insurance premiums (ITS FREE!!!). pay no taxes (40% don’t —why do you??? idiot!!) (file an honest return because you can’t go to jail if you just file a return. check it out!!) .
we need civil disobedience like gandhi and certainly michael king (alias martin luther— what a joke)never dreamed. go to bed . pray and then let’s raise HELL!

i fully advocate the use of civil violence at this point.

that won’t happen, but I do have a baseball bat, various metallic projectile launchers, a feather pillow and a jar of honey.

damn them all to hell!

and damn to hell every freaking idiot who put these tyrants in power!!!

i would assume that that would include every conservative that sat on the couch election day to ‘teach’ the republicans a lesson! i guess you did that all right....and took the country down with your attitude. thanks, thanks so much. my question to all of you...HAVE YOU LEARNED YOUR LESSON??????? election have consequences!

the dems must be frog hopped out of their offices and put on trial for TREASON. no excuses, anyone who voted for this must be tossed out and denied any pensions and put in prison.

in ictu oculi, sic transit gloria mundi...

but don't worry if you've heard this sturm und drang all before — this time they really mean it!

the gauntlet is thrown

steny is all talk, no action. they would have passed it today if they could. stalling for time. pure 100% propaganda.

we'll know tomorrow who's all talk, won't we?

pea-shooter 1, blimp 0

the best line from friday's much anticipated and overly hyped capitol hill sudden-death cage match bipartisan health care reform summit was president obama's response to house minority whip eric cantor, with a gratuitous assist by the daily show's jon stewart:

obama: we could set up a system where food was probably cheaper than it is right now, if we just eliminated ... meat inspectors.

absolutely effortless. like taking down a blimp with a pea-shooter.

scrooge's nightmare

... during the other 364 days of the year, as told by dougj @ balloon juice:

american politics is haunted by the specter of undeserving poor and working class americans living beyond their means on someone else's dime. it's not just strapping young bucks buying t-bone steaks with food stamps, it's strapping young bucks buying flat-screen tvs with credit cards they can't pay off, strapping young bucks gorging themselves at the applebee's salad bar with their inflated union wages, strapping young bucks buying houses with CRA-mandated subprime loans, strapping young bucks suing doctors with lawyers on retainer, strapping young bucks getting elective surgery with their taxpayer-subsidized health care. it's an all-purpose paradigm — it explains why welfare and single-payer health care are bad, why we need "tort reform" rather than health care reform, why the bankruptcy bill was good, and why we had a recession even with galtian geniuses like greenspan and rubin in charge of everything.

now you'll have to excuse me ... here comes that shiftless bob cratchit and his useless whelp tiny tim. whatever could they want now?

sarah palin speaks: "i had a dream"

(photo of gaylord opryland by kbilancini via flickr)

---

* see? it's all in good fun, y'betcha!

gop retreat

... 90 MINUTES LATER ...

one of the little things that amused me about the obama deathtrap fail the GOP sprung on themselves last week was the sight — on nationwide tv — of the president's staunchest foes crowding him for autographs and handshakes at the end of their own richly deserved drubbing.

sure, a certain protocol allowed it, and the signature of america's popular first black president is probably already worth a lot, but, for the sake of their rabid constituencies, whom they've fed — as obama painfully spelled out — a nonstop diet of conservative populist hate since obama's election, their representatives could have waited for the cameras to go dark before bowing to their alien overlord.

but anyone familiar with the authoritarian mindset shouldn't be surprised. bullies respect only power and despise weakness. as far as the bully is concerned, it's your own damn fault if you can't keep him from stealing your lunch money. by stealing the GOP's lunch money and eating their lunch in front of them and a national audience, obama became an object of worship, something every bully can respect ... at least until frank luntz can come up with a new set of talking points.

o captain!

whenever a leader faces a crisis of confidence, it often takes an extraordinary demonstration of the very qualities that originally inspired confidence to reinvigorate one's demoralized troops. such was president obama's friday trip into the lion cage — at the invitation of the lions.

the daring and unlikely high-wire animal-taming act seems to have thrilled the crowds for the time being. it most certainly thrilled the press:

mike madden @ salon:

obama's trip to the retreat started off slowly, with a speech that could have worked almost anywhere with only a few edits ahead of time. and then the question-and-answer session got started, and the event turned into a spectacle, the kind of thing that hasn't been seen in american politics in years — and probably won't again, once the people responsible for putting it together go back to look at the video. (which is too bad, because nbc does have an opening for a 10 p.m. show, and this was a lot more watchable than leno.) rarely has his administration done such a good job of bluntly underscoring the differences between what obama wants to do and what republicans would prefer if they had power. the president was funny and disarming, but he defended his policies fiercely, and he tiptoed up to the line of calling republicans liars to their faces ... the whole thing basically went like that: republican asks obnoxious question rooted in glenn beck-ian talking points; obama swats it away, makes the questioner look silly, and then smiles at the end. it got so bad, in fact, that fox news cut away from the event before it was over. democratic operatives around washington watching it had pretty much the same reaction: "where the hell has this guy been?"

mark ambinder @ the atlantic:

obama's question time: an amazing moment the moment president obama began his address to republicans in baltimore today, i began to receive e-mails from democrats: here's an except from one of them: "i don't know whether to laugh or cry that it took a f$$@&$* year for obama to step into the ring and start throwing some verbal blows... i'm definitely praying at mass on sunday morning that this obama doesn't take another 12 month vacation." this e-mail comes from a very influential democrat. accepting the invitation to speak at the House GOP retreat may turn out to be the smartest decision the white house has made in months. debating a law professor is kind of foolish: the republican house caucus has managed to turn obama's weakness — his penchant for nuance — into a strength. plenty of republicans asked good and probing questions, but mike pence, among others, found their arguments simply demolished by the president. (by the way: can we stop with the obama needs a teleprompter jokes?) ... republicans may have wished they had spoken to john mccain about what happened to him in the presidential debates before they decided to broadcast this session. the president looked genuinely engaged, willing to discuss things. democrats believe that he tossed away the GOP talking points and lack of real plans into a bludgeon against them. "the whole question was structured by a talking point," he told jeb hensarling. obama took the blame for not living up to some of his promises on transparency in health care negotiations. he displayed a familiarity with republican proposals that seemed to astonish those who asked questions of him. and at the end, republicans rushed up to him, pens and photo cameras in hands, wanting autographs and pictures. mused one mid-level white house official: "this really is the best thing we've done in a long, long time".

ezra klein @ the washington post:

obama's Q&A session with the house republicans was transfixing. what should have been a banal exchange of talking points was actually a riveting reminder of how rarely you hear actual debate — which is separate from disagreement — between political players. this was a surprise. the session was clearly proposed so that obama could appear to be taking real steps to reach out to republicans. that implied warm feelings and a studied unwillingness to cause offense. but that was not the event we just saw. instead, obama stood at a podium for an hour and hammered his assailants. that makes it sound partisan and disrespectful. but it wasn't. it was partisan, but respectful. there's a value in proving that you understand the other side's ideas deeply enough to disagree with them. and that was the message of obama's session. not that the republicans were right. but that he'd looked hard enough at their ideas to realize they were wrong. ... amazed that obama knows offhand that ryan wants medicare vouchers. more amazed he can explain it offhand. this is a command performance. yesterday, i interviewed david axelrod and was struck by his inability to explain how the white house would highlight the the difference between disagreement and obstruction. today's session, if it becomes a regular event rather than a one-off, provided part of the answer. he'll debate them directly. but that may be tough to do. republicans are already spreading the word that they made a mistake allowing cameras into the event. apparently, transparency sounds better in press releases than it does in practice. but if this is to be the last of these we see for a while, make sure to take the time and watch it, or read the transcript. it's some of the best political television i've seen in memory.

steve benen @ the washington monthly:

i'm reasonably certain i've never seen anything like it. GOP house members were fairly respectful of the president, but pressed him on a variety of policy matters. the president didn't just respond effectively, he delivered a rather powerful, masterful performance. it was like watching a town-hall forum where all of the questions were confrontational, but obama nevertheless just ran circles around these guys. i can only assume caucus members, by the end of the Q&A, asked themselves, "whose bright idea was it to invite the president and let him embarrass us on national television?". note, however, that this wasn't just about political theater — it was an important back-and-forth between the president and his most forceful political detractors. they were bringing up routine far-right talking points that, most of the time, simply get repeated in the media unanswered. but in baltimore, the president didn't just respond to the nonsense, he effectively debunked it. republicans thought they were throwing their toughest pitches, and obama — with no notes, no teleprompter, and no foreknowledge — just kept knocking 'em out of the park. it's easy to forget sometimes just how knowledgeable and thoughtful obama can be on matters of substance. i don't imagine the house republican caucus will forget anytime soon — if the president is going to use their invitation to score big victories, he probably won't be invited back next year. nevertheless, the white house should schedule more of these. a lot more of these.

matt yglesias @ think progress:

it was sort of like prime minister’s questions and it revealed, simply put, that barack obama is a lot smarter and better-informed than his antagonists. a lot. he very calmly and coolly dismantled them. to me, personally, it’s not a surprise. i debated policy with mike pence once and the guy is a stone-cold idiot. that was a years ago and i’ve been surprised since then to learn that conservatives consider him an unusually sharp policy mind and i take leading rightwingers at their word about that. but it’s the kind of thing that i think most americans aren’t aware of. obama knows what he’s talking about. a lot of the members of congress you see on TV all the time talking smack don’t. that’s not always clear to people since the TV anchors interviewing them usually also don’t know what they’re talking about. judd gregg’s whining freakout on MSNBC yesterday punctured the illusion of calm confidence and so did obama’s back-and-forth.

richard adams @ the guardian:

obama eats republicans' lunch ... i think we can confidently predict this is the last time the republicans invite the president to a similar format. indeed, because the hall the republicans are holding their event seemed to have just a single TV camera, obama literally took the spotlight away. republican questioners showed up as shadowy figures, and when caucus leader mike pence kicked off the republican questions at first he couldn't be heard at all. at the end, shaking hands with the president, pence's face looked as if he'd sucked a lemon for an hour — and in a way he had. ... the net effect is that obama looked serious, reasonable and intelligent. the republicans got to sound like whiners, complaining about various pet peeves and chewing over their old laundry list of tax cuts and opposition".

jed lewison @ daily kos:

check out this video of fox news bailing out on president obama's Q&A session with more than 20 minutes left to go. now if that ain't evidence that president obama cleaned the GOP's clock ... well, then i don't know what is.