Crittenden is right, this is a cluelessly ironic piece of drivel.

You should know that if you’re hunting beta-males then DC is the place to be. I live here, I know what I’m talking about. So it’s amusing to watch beta-male David Ignatius coach beta-male Barack Obama on how to deal with Republicans. He wants Obama to go all Eastwood on ‘dere ass.

But, most of all, Obama needs to tell GOP leaders what he expects, and make clear the political consequences of obstruction. In that sense, the tone of his Post op-ed today was off. The themes were there; what was missing was that Clint Eastwood snarl: Go ahead, Senator. Defy my stimulus program. Make my day!

Ignatius missed the point that machismo only works when two conditions apply: (a) you can back it up and (b) the other side is afraid of the alternative.

Neither applies here.

Obama has consistently demonstrated that he is a petulant four-year old when things don’t break his way. So there goes condition (a). Why be afraid? Don’t give him what he wants (because it is a manifestly bad idea) and let him whine and be shrill. From the Republican perspective – where’s the down side?

Obama also doesn’t have any bullets in the chamber. So there goes condtion (b). Republicans are (or ought to be) amenable to letting him have his way. Very few people, including the Congressional Budget Office, expect this thing to work.  In fact, they expect it to make things worse. Doing nothing would be better than this bill.

So Republicans should try to make this bill into something that works and when they’ve gone as far as they can then vote against it anyway and let Obama have his way. Since it’s not going to work (because Keynesian economics never has) Barry can take all the credit for it. But since Obama thinks it will work, why is he upset Republicans aren’t on board? After all, if it works he’ll get all the credit – right?

He’s upset because he needs the political cover.   So much so that he’s now given to apocalyptic imagery to make his point.  Hey!  I thought it was wrong to scare people into getting your way politically.  Isn’t that what the Dems said after 9/11?

To quote Al Gore, “He played on our fears!!!”

Ah yes, hypocrisy truly is the tribute which vice pays to virtue.

No, Barry can’t be Eastwood. But he does look remarkably like another character in a Hollywood western – Hedley Lamarr.

Hedley Lamarr: My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives.
Taggart:  God darnit, Mr. Lamarr, you use your tongue prettier than a twenty dollar whore.

Well, that is how he got to the White House.

Krauthammer thinks the free ride is over:

After Obama’s miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell — and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

The Republicans should let him stew in this bill to highlight the fact that the whole thing was the type of effort you get from a rookie – or dare I say – an affirmative action hire. There is no reason for Republicans to climb on board this train. Something needs to be done, but when the boat is sinking you don’t drill holes in the bottom to let the water out.