Atrios was right the other day -- wingers have a rage addiction. So here we have Dick Cheney's cabana boy outraged that Inauguration Day falls on a Sunday this year. That means Obama is being sworn in on January 20th, in a private ceremony, and they'll be a public ceremony on the 21st. Just like Eisenhower did it.

The 20th Amendment to the Constitution set January 20th as the official inaugural date. Because January 20, 1957 fell on a Sunday, President Eisenhower took the oath of office for his second term in a private White House ceremony.

But to be fair to Christie, Eisenhower was a Republican, which obviously makes all the difference.

[/snark]

Ron Christie, who was an assistant to both Dick Cheney and George W. Bush and is frequently a talking head on political shows like "Hardball," is conflating a couple of common wingnut memes here: that liberals deviously support the welfare state because it keeps people poor and that Obama hates rich people.

Add them up and, presto! Obama doesn't want you to get rich.

It would be a much more interesting election if Republicans were actually running against the real Obama, instead of the one they imagine in their tiny, warped minds.

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As Chris Matthews explored yesterday on Hardball, the Republican right is going nuts trying to claim that President Obama is "weak on terror," led by the likes of Dick Cheney and his clan. The conversation featured ex-Cheney aide Ron Christie, who mostly fumbled around trying to, as Matthews put it, "defend the indefensible". (And he didn't even mention the fact that it was Cheney himself who secretly freed two of the terrorists from Gitmo later credited with forming Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula.)

Matthews also played a clip of Republican Jane Norton, a candidate for Colorado's Senate seat in 2010, taking the Cheney Offensive another step:

Matthews: This is Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton at a town hall in Colorado this week. Let’s listen because it is the same anthem.

[Video clip] Jane Norton: And what I believe is happening, Steve, is the fact that the rights of terrorists are more important in this administration than the lives of American citizens. We are seeing it in the criminal field. We are seeing it in the health care field. We are seeing it in almost every area that we are looking at.

Matthews: What do you make of that? What do you mean the lives of Americans aren't as important, that’s why there is a health care bill because the Democrats don’t care about the lives of Americans?

Here's what we make of that: These people are insane.

Transcript here:

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