I'm always happy to see the progressives step up and demand what they want - you know, instead of falling into the fetal position. Greg Sargent from The Plumline:

At a private meeting at the White House yesterday, top House liberals urged President Obama to more aggressively throw his weight into a public campaign on behalf of the public option, a leading House progressive said in an interview.

Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva, the co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, says that this point was made “emphatically” to the president in the meeting yesterday with House liberals, and that his help was urgently needed in bringing centrist Dems on board.

“We need the full engagement of everybody in this discussion — that includes the White House,” Grijalva said in characterizing the message that was delivered to the president. Grijalva described the meeting in an interview with Democracy Now.

Dems have largely refrained from making such a blunt case publicly, not wanting to appear critical of the president. But Grijalva appears to have no qualms about making it.

“We really do feel that engagement from the leader of this nation is vital if we’re going to end up with anything that approaches a robust public option,” Grijalva said.

Strong stuff. I’ve asked Grijalva’s office what the president’s response was, and will update you if I learn more.

The Politico, via email:

If the House and Senate are forced to water down the public option (to, say, negotiated rates in the House and a Senate trigger), liberals will have a much weaker negotiating position in the Senate-House conference committee. So look for liberal pressure groups to work on moderate Dems big in coming days as it becomes increasingly clear that the public option’s epilogue could be cast in the debate’s first chapters.

Progressives, start your engines! We have a lot of work ahead of us.

In the meantime, I've finally located the numbers for premium subsidies - or, as they're called in the bill, "affordability credits." Here they are, and as I thought, the numbers simply aren't realistic.

The bill provides financial assistance on a sliding scale. Premiums range from 1.5 percent of income to 12% for those at 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. The plan provides additional assistance for households up to 400% of the FPL by limiting cost-sharing to 3% of plan costs at the lowest tier, to 30% of plan costs at 350-400% of the FPL.

For instance: If your income is under 133-150% of the poverty level, your premiums will be limited to a range of 1.5 to 3%. That means you'll pay 3% of plan costs, with an annual out-of-pocket cap of $500 for individuals and $1000 for families.

And so on:

150-200% - 3-5.5% - 7% - $1000/$2000
200-250% - 5.5-8% - 15% - $2000/$4000
250-300% - 8-10% - 22% - $4000/$8000
300-350% - 10-11% - 28% - $4500/$9000
350-400% - 11-12% - 30% - $5000/$10,000

The Federal Poverty Level is:

Persons in family
1 $10,830
2 14,570
3 18,310
4 22,050
5 25,790
6 29,530
7 33,270
8 37,010

For families with more than 8 persons, add $3,740 for each additional person.

So although I've been on unemployment for the past year, I would be expected to pay approximately $4000 a year. Huh? Your individual mileage may vary, but those figures aren't very reassuring to me.

Do the math, and let me know if you think this is affordable. If it isn't, it's time to push your representatives into doing the right thing.

Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show yesterday, via Media Matters:

You -- In 2008, in our presidential election, we had a, a, a war veteran, Vietnam War veteran, John McCain, against an elitist, five-minute career senator of a hundred and fifty days. That senator was running as a Democrat, and had actively sought the defeat of the U.S. military in Iraq -- had actively sought to undermine General Petraeus, who was the author of the surge that led to a turnaround in Iraq and a victory. And now that same man is dithering in Afghanistan while American soldiers -- not Bush soldiers, not Obama soldiers, American soldiers -- are dying. At record numbers.

The threat that people in this country who want to be free face is now within our own borders. That's the stark reality. We'll be back.

Obama and the liberals are, in the land of the Limbaughst, the True Enemies of America.

If only Limbaugh really were "just an entertainer." Then we could dismiss him as a clown. But "entertainers" don't have audiences of "dittohead" acolytes who absorb their every word as gospel truth. "Entertainers" don't make condemnations of half the country as being the "enemy within" and actually stand -- and actually stand a chance of the other half nodding its head in agreement.

This, of course, is how you whip up violence: You scapegoat, you demonize, you dehumanize, and most of all, you paint a target on people's backs and say they're they Enemy. And you can't help but suspect Limbaugh is perfectly aware of this.

I devote a fair amount of space in The Eliminationists to Limbaugh. For a lot of reasons. Obviously, he's been doing this for awhile. But he's also stepping it up quite bit.

PROMOTIONAL NOTE: I'll be speaking tonight in Mount Vernon, Wash., at the Lincoln Theater at 7 pm. I'll be discussing my book as well as the recent visit to the city by Glenn Beck.

Thomas Frank is, admittedly, the token liberal op-ed writer at The Wall Street Journal. And it's hard to say whether Murdoch's minions let this one slip through on purpose to lend credibility to the newspaper, or by accident:

To point out that this network [FOX News] is different, that it is intensely politicized, that it inhabits an alternate reality defined by an imaginary conflict between noble heartland patriots and devious liberals—to be aware of these things is not the act of a scheming dictatorial personality. It is the obvious conclusion drawn by anybody with eyes and ears.

The comment section had me splitting a gut laughing, especially this one:

Dr. Charles Krauthammer is a conservative respected on both the right and the left.

Far be it for me to speak for the right. But is there anyone on the Left who has "respect" for Charles Krauthammer? (Tweety doesn't count.)

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The Bitter Man strikes back.

Democratic moderates who control the balance of power on health care legislation balked Tuesday at a government-run insurance option for millions of Americans, underscoring the enormity of the challenge confronting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid one day after he unveiled the plan as a consensus product.
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The decision to include a government insurance option in his legislation had obvious appeal for liberals who account for a strong majority inside the Senate Democratic caucus, and it is likely to please labor unions and party activists in Nevada.

But it has gained less-than-effusive support from Obama, who is eager to have at least a dollop of bipartisanship for his signature domestic issue. Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine, the only Republican who has sided with Democrats in committee this year, has announced she will not support the bill Reid drafted.

Still, if Reid is pressed in coming weeks by moderates to fall back, he can explain to liberals that he was forced to do so because his preference — a government insurance option — proved to be unobtainable in the Senate. Already, that pressure is evident...read on

Joe Lieberman is a bitter old man who was looking for some media juice yesterday when he decided to spit in the face of Americans who want real health care reform. Can you trust either his motives or what he says anymore?

Joe Lieberman has once again rolled a political hand grenade into the Democrats’ tent.

The Connecticut independent obliterated any illusion that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) can quickly ram through health care reform with a public option, telling reporters on Tuesday that he would join Republicans in a filibuster to prevent a vote on Reid’s plan if it isn’t changed first.

“We’re trying to do too much at once,” said Lieberman, who signaled he would vote with Reid on the first procedural vote that requires 60 votes, the motion to proceed.

The media will never call out Lieberman over his bullshit.

And Lieberman’s justification on this is just nonsense – the public option would SAVE money for the government, to the tune of $100 billion dollars over 10 years according to the Congressional Budget Office. It also would cost nothing to the taxpayer, being financed by individual premiums.

The public option saves money and Holy Joe knows it. And the Senate will never take action against another Senator no matter how outrageous their behavior is.

But Lieberman’s fellow Connecticut senator, Democrat Chris Dodd, who faces a tough reelection fight in 2010, dismissed the idea that Lieberman would incur any retribution.

“No, no, no. People are going to be all over the place,” he said when asked if Lieberman should be punished. “The idea that people are going to be reprimanded because somehow they have a different point of view than someone else is ridiculous. That isn’t going to happen.”

Lieberman can thank President Obama for retaining his committees and unless he gets caught in bed with a goat, he gets to do whatever he wants. The House of Lords always protect their royal status over their constituents. Well, Mr. President -- it's time to reign in this herd of Conservadems if you really want the public option. All this could be the awesome kabuki dance that pols do as they negotiate legislation through the media. Well, Mr. President, you got him -- you own him now so make him pony up. Oh, wait -- Senators are immune to any type of accountability. Sorry, I forgot what I wrote earlier in this piece.

Too bad Ned Lamont didn't win in 2006, but we forced Joe out of the Dem Party and Ned is still speaking up against Lieberman. They did debate health care and Holy Joe was for "universal health care" at the time, but now he has a Republican base to protect.

I asked Lamont if he thinks that Obama, who intervened last November to keep Senate Democrats from stripping Lieberman of his committee chairmanship, was guilty of trusting Connecticut's junior senator too much.

"I would really hope that Senator Lieberman would have returned that courtesy by talking to the president's team before walking out on this filibuster plank," he replied.

Lieberman's seat will be up in 2012. His polls numbers have improved a little this year, but they're still very shaky, a 48-45 percent approval rating among all voters in the state. But among Democrats, they're poisonous. Does Lieberman's latest move mean he's abandoning any thought of running as a Democrat again in '12?

"He got re-elected in '06 with overwhelming Republican support," Lamont said. "So I guess he's just taking care of his base."

Do me a favor and contact Joe's offices and tell him to give us an up-or-down vote on health care and not to join Republicans in a filibuster. He likely won't listen, but it's important that he hear our voices.

One Constitution Plaza
7th Floor
Hartford, CT 06103
(860) 549-8463 Voice
--
706 Hart Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
(202) 224-4041 Voice

And please: Donate to Blue America's Campaign For Health Care Choice so we can continue to fight for health care reform. We have several actions we're working on...

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From Face the Nation, Russ Feingold has to remind Bob Schieffer that the "public option" is not a "liberal" position on health care reform. It's a compromise. What liberals want is single-payer.

SCHIEFFER: Let’s talk a little bit about health care. Where do you think health care reform stands in the Senate right now? I know you want the public option, the government-run insurance program, like Medicare for older people. The majority leader now seems inclined to include that in the bill that he’s going to bring to the floor. Do you think that has any chance at this point of passage? Because for a while now, people have been saying the votes are just not there in the Senate.

FEINGOLD: Well, I want to give my majority leader, Harry Reid credit for seriously considering putting this public option in there. I think it’s very important. It’s a sign of strong leadership on his part that he has the guts to do that. Because the American people are for some alternative that will create some competition for the abuses of the insurance industry. So I believe that there’s a good chance it will be in the bill that comes before us in the Senate. I think we have some chance of prevailing in the Senate on it and if we don't I think there's a chance it will come through the House. So I’m becoming increasingly optomistic that we will have a health care bill that will not frighten the American people, that they'll be able to see as reasonable -- it's not a complete government take over health care, but will provide an option for those that don’t have health care or are unhappy with their health care to do something else and I'm frankly getting excited that we may have some momentum for something very positive.

SCHIEFFER: As I understand it, the liberals want the, want the public option. The conservatives don’t. Do you think there’s a possibility that this thing may just end up in a log jam, that liberals won’t vote for this plan without the public option and the conserves won’t vote for it if it includes the public option, and so we wind up with nothing instead of something?

FEINGOLD: Well, that could happen, but the truth is, what liberals want is a single-payer system. Medicare for everybody. So the idea of a public option is really a very moderate idea. Within the current context of a continuing private system, it’s a tough one to swallow for many people who want a single-payer system. So this is a very reasonable approach that I would think people who are both conservative and liberal and in the middle would say, let’s try this; let’s see if this can control and bring under some reason of measure that the insurance companies could finally improve their act.

That is exactly what -- what this is. It is not a liberal or left-wing concept at all.

Continue reading »

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On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, a discussion of the political machinations around the public option:

On the Roundtable, Bloomberg’s Al Hunt says that a health reform package can’t pass without the support of Sen. Olympia Snowe. She provides cover for moderates like Sens. Ben Nelson and Mary Landrieu and may pull over a couple of Republican votes.

HUNT: "Olympia Snowe, I think, thinks privately that in the end the trigger will be the compromise everyone has to rally around and give a little bit of face-saving to liberals and she and a few other republicans can go for it."

They really don't get it, do they? They're so out of touch with reality that they don't understand the kind of serious harm they're doing to the Democratic brand with this bait-and-switch routine on the public option.

A trigger? A frackin' trigger? How much longer do we have to wait to get relief from the predatory practices of the insurance industry? And how much more obvious does it have to be that the priority in the Senate is incumbency protection?

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Oh look! Annie's trying to sell another book—and spouting her typical outrageous crap which is frankly growing quite tiresome. I'd like to know why Joy Behar thinks Coulter should be given another national format besides ClusterFox to spread her bile.

Behar asks Ann Coulter why there are so many more threats against President Obama to the point that it’s “straining the Secret Service” and of course Coulter is completely dismissive of the idea that what Behar cited is even true.

Coulter: I do not—I don’t know what the evidence is. I would be shocked if there were more threats against Obama.

Behar: I’m telling you—what is this another “I don’t believe the polls”? I’m telling you…

Coulter: It’s not a poll. I think they may be more aggressive about investigating it. But…

Behar: No, no, no—he’s getting more threats.

Coulter: A…As I have not only witnessed in my own life but described in guilty, every Presidential assassination or attempted Presidential assassination was committed by some sort of left wing loon, communist, anarchist, communitarians—yes they were—or they had no politics at all.

Behar: But the home grown terrorists are also another group that we have to worry about here.

Coulter: OK, but they’re all liberals, so if Obama gets assassinated…

Behar: Don’t make that jump from murderer to terrorist to liberals. That is an outrageous statement and you know it.

Coulter: Well it’s all described in Guilty… (crosstalk) …if you go through it assassin, by assassin, by assassin and moreover you to a…

Behar: Look, they’re not liberal…they’re murderers, they’re terrorists. Stop it.

Coulter: Right, but OK, what is the idealogy…

Behar: Stop it.

Coulter: They are communists. Look…

Behar: They are communists?

Coulter: Lee Harvey Osward tried to move to the Soviet Union. He was on his way to Cuba. He was a communist. You have one after another of all these guys. So it isn’t…it isn’t because Obama is liberal…if something happens to him it’s going to be MoveOn.org.

Behar: It’s because he’s black. Well come on. Let’s just say it.

Coulter: No, it’s…

Behar: Yes it is.

Coulter: Well OK maybe liberals, liberals are a little racist.

And the conversation goes even further downhill from there. I have neither the time nor the desire to debunk all of Coulter’s crap but I’m sure the commenters here can give us about a hundred reasons as to why what she said here is so completely wrong it’s comical, starting with the premise that all Presidential assassins were “left wing loons”. I don’t think she’s worth the energy to do so but if anyone else does, have at it. Just keep off of the he-man Coulter jokes please as not to insult any of our LGBT folks who visit the site and deserve better than being associated with the likes of Coulter-geist.

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Rep. Anthony Weiner did his usual stellar job being the progressive voice on health care yesterday on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews. In typical Villager fashion, Matthews want to paint the public option as the "ultra liberal" position on health care, and Weiner helped set him straight:

MATTHEWS: OK, let me ask you this. What percentage, do you think, of Democrats in this country are liberals and what percent are moderates?

WEINER: I have no idea. I think...

MATTHEWS: Do you think most are liberals.

WEINER: I have to say...

MATTHEWS: Do you think most are liberals?

WEINER: No, here's what I think. I think when it comes to health care, the moderate position is choice and competition. I don't believe the public option is the liberal position. The liberal position is what I have, single payer for all Americans. This is the compromise position.

Of course, the whole point of painting the public option as the "far left" position is that, in Villagespeak, the liberal position is always doomed to being compromised by "centrist" Democrats. Which was the upshot of Matthews' interview -- namely, that liberals should be prepared to give up the public option to appease "centrists" in their own party.

Weiner had the perfect answer to that tripe:

WEINER: I think that we need to make the argument to my Democratic friends that this is an all-or-nothing strategy for us as Democrats. We run the country right now...

MATTHEWS: OK...

WEINER: ... House, Senate and the presidency.

MATTHEWS: OK...

WEINER: And if we can't do this (INAUDIBLE)

MATTHEWS: I've been talking around the Hill, talking to staffers and some members, and I've gotten to the point of disbelief. A lot of people like you believe that in the end, no good Democrat from wherever they are in the country is willing to be the man or woman who brings down the president's number one political ambition for this year, health care. And in the end, you folks believe that there'll be such tremendous pressure on all the Democrats, Nebraska, North Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, they'll still have to vote with the party. Do you believe that?

WEINER: Well, let me...

MATTHEWS: Do you believe that?

WEINER: Let me say yes but phrase it a different way. There's a divide here. Some people think a watered-down health care plan could be a success for us. Some, like myself, believe if we don't get this right...

MATTHEWS: OK...

WEINER: ... we're not going to get another chance for 20 years.

MATTHEWS: You're a good spokesman. Thank you, sir.

Blanche Lincoln, we hope you're listening.

CNN's media critic, Howard Kurtz, came up with THE answer to all our complaints:

KURTZ: And if liberals or conservatives like David Brooks don't like what the high-decibel pundits say or think they're peddling misinformation, they should go after them in the media marketplace, not with boycotts or name-calling or screaming or shouting, but on the battlefield of ideas.

Wow, that's so simple. Why didn't anybody think of that? Wait a second. Just hold on there. Isn't organizing a boycott an actual idea which then takes a ton of work to be successful? Isn't leading a boycott against a Glenn Beck or a Lou Dobbs actually going into the media marketplace and hitting them right in the pocketbook?

Can Howard suggest what battlefield of ideas I should go on? Does he consider Reliable Sources one of those battlefields? Can Howard help fund a radio program for me that will air either before or right after Sean Hannity, on all the same nationwide affiliates so I can at least partially compete with Hannidate's audience and have a chance to express my ideas at his level?

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Chris Matthews is getting all hot and bothered because liberals in Congress and from the netroots are pushing hard to get a public option included in health care reform. That's called legislating, Chris. It's a long, hard process sometimes.

The Village really gets upset when dirty f*&king hippies get uppity and speak out on issues that matter. Villagers don't care that America voted in Obama with a mandate on health-care reform. Villagers don't care that America rejected conservatism, which practically caused the world to almost spin off its axis. It's getting to the point that Tweety is pulling stuff out of his pie hole because he hates us so much. And apparently Tweety forgot that "the left" was elected in droves in 2008. "The Left" is not a fringe teabagger, tax evading group, it dominates the House of Representatives. Here he is on Andrea Mitchell talking about Obama and Afghanistan and see where Tweety goes with it all.

Matthews: Everybody is doing their politics here. She represents San Francisco and she represents, I know the Speaker's role. you have to respond to the nosiest elements in your caucus, and the most passionate and apparently, I assume just knowing the Democratic House, the voices she's hearing from every single day are the left who want out. Now this president never promised to get out of Afghanistan. And he's not gonna...

He never promised to pull out, that was the good war, the necessary war. Oh, by the way he never ran on the public option. Somebody's got to tell these people on the left and the netroots and some of our colleagues, yeah, he might like the idea of a public option, he may prefer it. He didn't run on it. He didn't get elected for it. So this idea that he somehow betrayed a left wing mandate is nonsense.

Where to begin. Why is it OK to attack Nancy Pelosi for representing San Francisco? What did they ever do to Bill O'Reilly and Tweety? Aren't they part of the US of A too? That she is from the Bay Area somehow minimizes the fact that she's the Speaker. On Afghanistan, he's right. President Obama did not promises to withdraw from there. That's why we on the left have to put pressure on the administration or we could be there for decades.

But President Obama did campaign on the public option., It was part of his health-care plan that he unveiled in the primaries. I asked Ezra Klein to verify it for me and he did.

Berkeley's Jacob Hacker, who was the first to persuasively articulate it; to the Economic Policy Institute, which fleshed out the specifics; and to the Campaign for America's Future, which took the lead in selling it to advocacy groups and the presidential campaigns. John Edwards picked it up and made it central to his proposal, and the other candidates followed suit to protect their left flanks.

And I found that Paul Krugman has it also.

The idea of letting individuals buy insurance from a government-run plan was introduced in 2007 by Jacob Hacker of Yale, was picked up by John Edwards during the Democratic primary, and became part of the original Obama health care plan.

Tweety needs to apologize to President Obama, the netroots and the liberals in Congress who he just smeared in this clip. We are fighting for real health-care reform in America and not some mythical-bipartisan Beltway compromise bill that is completely useless to all the real working families that the Villagers like to pretend they speak for all the time.

(h/t Heather at Video Cafe)

Politics in the Zeros: Populist Party Platform, 1892 (It could have been written for today)

Liberal Values: Nuclear engineer at Cern Lab arrested for alleged ties to al Qaeda

Alas, a blog: Every time a racist criticizes the president, someone cries, "racism."

Seeing the Forest: Modern Governing

AfterDowningStreet: Rep. Obey joins us idiot liberals

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: NYT out of ideas...Coffee talk...The Corner in a corner...Conservative gullibility...Bad faith and sloth...Politico Fail...Beachwood Reporter...Anatomy of a column...WaPo partisan goldmine...World Nut Daily...

Conservatives just can't help it when they act like misogynists. It's hard wired into their DNA much the same way it's hard wired into Richard Land's views about women. The National Republican Congressional Committee is attacking Nancy Pelosi and is really hoping that Gen. McChrystal will put her in her place in their latest fundraising press release.

Now, Pelosi is backpedaling on Afghanistan amidst increasing criticism from the radical left:

"I've also made it clear it's a very difficult vote to get from the members," she added. "Their constituents don't like an escalated war in Afghanistan. They'd like to see a different approach. But let's see what the president has to say." (Glenn Thrush, “Pelosi skeptical about Afghan surge, McChrystal,” Politico, 10/05/2009)

“General Pelosi has no problem sacrificing her own credibility as the Obama administration and liberals in Congress attempt to walk back a strategy they strongly advocated just months ago,” said NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain. “Nancy Pelosi continues to make party politics a higher priority than our national security. Rather than listening to a four-star general’s assessments on Afghanistan, General Pelosi somehow believes she is better suited to craft our country’s military policy.” If Nancy Pelosi’s failed economic policies are any indicator of the effect she may have on Afghanistan, taxpayers can only hope McChrystal is able to put her in her place.

Matt Yglesias says that the NRCC is trying to "deploy a touch of the old condescending sexism via the Speaker of the House of Representatives."

Nancy Pelosi responded to the NRCC like this:

"It's really sad they don't understand how inappropriate that is," Pelosi told reporters at her weekly press conference. " I'm in my place. I'm the Speaker of the House, the first woman Speaker of the House. And I'm in my place because the House voted me there. That language is something I hadn't heard in decades."

I always love how conservatives attack Democratic women and want them to stay home and watch the kids, but when it comes a conservative in politic they flip flop to try and appear as if they support women's rights. Here's Richard Land on MTP back in 2005 sharing his vision of women in America:

Russert: We can try to find common ground, but there are differences, and I want to see just how profound they are. The Southern Baptist Convention in 1998 passed this statement on the family: "...A wife is to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband... She...has the God-given responsibility to respect her husband and to serve as his helper in managing the household..."And, Reverend Land, you went on to explain it this way: "If a husband does not want his wife to work outside the home, then she should not work outside the home." Is that your vision of America?

DR. LAND: It's my vision for Christian families. I don't think that the law has anything to do with it.

And as usual Beck rules: Dear Mom, Beck has history of sexist comments

The Politico's Roger Simon wasted no time on Hardball in smearing Rep. Alan Grayson after the Florida rep. went on the offensive against republicans over health care

"like a guy on crack who's always searching for a bigger high"

It's one of the first times that Alan has ever gotten any national exposure before so how does he even make a case that Grayson is a media hound? Matthews at least thought what he said was true about the republicans just say no stance on health care reform, but James Warren also attacked him as has most of the Villagers. They sure don't like uppity liberals, but if you're a nut job conservative you can say anything at all on TV, in Congress or on radio.

And the money keeps coming in for Rep. Grayson.

I think the blogosphere appreciates a liberal with guts.

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Michelle Malkin was the featured guest on Sean Hannity's Fox News show last night to talk about President Obama's address to the United Nations, and it was a sight to behold. A wretched, horrifyingly ugly sight, but yeah, a sight:

Malkin: He doesn't like this country very much. And I think you did a great video tour there of all of his wonderful hits on his "We Suck '09" tour, ah, so far. And this latest speech before the United Nations and its cast of villainous characters -- it was really a Legion of Doom parade that he dignified with his presence -- and he solidified his place in the international view as the Great Appeaser and the Groveler in Chief!

Hannity finds it "almost shocking" that "Obama was saying we're not going to force our values on you." Malkin correctly calls this "a rejection of American exceptionalism" -- as though that were a bad thing. Maybe that's one of the differences between movement conservatives and sane people: The latter do not harbor megalomaniacal visions of American power ruling the world and forcing our values on other nations.

Ah, but we liberals are so naive, Malkin says, because "hatred of America is never going to go away" -- which is probably true. On the other hand, policies that arrogantly inflame and deepen that hatred are not, you know, really in our best interests.

And then Malkin finishes with a flourish:

Malkin: With this speech, and over the last eight months with his policies of retreat and surrender, he has solidified his place as the weakest of weak leaders of modern American history. There's no question about it! They laugh at us! He is a laughingstock.

There she goes, projecting again.

At some point, you have to wonder whether these people understand that the angrier and more venomous and more hateful they become, the more disempowered they become? Because the only people who are going to be convinced by this kind of nastiness are already True Believers. And even some of them may take pause at how bottomless is the pit from which this stuff crawls.