…or Granny gets it:

…he drew plaudits from what used to be called the mainstream media. “Obama Grasping Centrist Banner in Debt Impasse” read the New York Times headline. The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza dubbed him “Dad-in-Chief,” explaining: “Boil Obama’s message down and you get this: Adults sometimes have to do things that they don’t want to do. This is one of those times. So, let’s get it done.”

The kids are acting up, so he threatens to starve Granny to death. That’s just how a strong father behaves.

It looks to us as if Obama may once again be overestimating his persuasive powers by relying for feedback on journalists who, for a combination of ideological, partisan and personal reasons, are predisposed to take his side. NewsBusters.org has a useful compilation of what it calls the “softballs” reporters lobbed at yesterday’s press conference. Some of them were actually a bit adversarial, but only from the left.

I hope he continues to live in his leftist media cocoon. It will only reduce his chances of reelection.

His advice to the American people seems to be that if one has a problem with taxes, one should get better tax software and stop asking so many questions, or find the severed head of a horse in your bed.

If I were a Republican candidate, I’d make a statement that, if I were president, I wouldn’t use the elderly as human shields to compel people meet my unreasonable demands.

[Update a few minutes later]

Speaking of press sycophancy, is Obamageddon coming to a city near you?

The election of the first African-American president was widely hailed as a giant step forward for American racial politics. The future, however, may remember this administration as a giant step back for Black America during a period of deepening alienation, anger and despair in America’s inner cities.

Not since the 1960s, when scores of American cities were shaken by one race riot after another, have African-Americans faced such deadly conditions: high expectations and hopes running up against a reality of vanishing jobs, shrinking government budgets and a fractured and fragmented leadership. Barring an unlikely change in economic fortunes we could soon face a new period of explosive anger and even violence; alternatively, the urban poor could fall prey to a new kind of passive despair and anomie as hope dies on one inner city street after another.

Either way, the mainstream press’s slowly fading intoxication with the Obama administration has led it to miss the dimensions of the new urban crisis now stalking the United States. The liberal Reagan, they swooned back in the good old days. No — the new FDR! No, wait! The new Lincoln!

But as the rosy glow surrounding the administration and all its works slowly dies away, many Americans will be taken aback at the urban crisis that quietly and unostentatiously took shape while the fatuously exhilarated press choirs sang about the hope and the change that was coming our way.

It is ironic that he may be the worst president for blacks, ever.

[Update a while later]

The president needs to stop scaring seniors. Apparently he disagrees.

Remember the one I showed this weekend? Well check this one out:

I remember when James Carville demagogued Bill Clinton into office in 1992 with continuous lies that it was “the worst economy in fifty years.” Well, folks, this is the worst economy seventy years. And it won’t improve until we remove from office the people determined to keep wrecking it, who first took power five and a half years ago. There are a lot more scary charts at the link, if that’s not enough for you.

…How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off You:

A new book on corruption and rent seeking by my colleague at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Iain Murray, launches today.

[Update a few minutes later]

An explanatory editorial from the author.

…my new book, Stealing You Blind: How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You, doesn’t just talk about the excesses of government pay. It looks at how the modern American state has rigged the rules to support itself at our expense. The Internal Revenue Service is allowed to ignore the Constitution. Regulations cost our economy more than the federal deficit without anyone batting an eyelid, as they turn ordinary Americans into criminals. Worst of all, our education system has ceased to educate our children and now only works to benefit the education establishment—unionized teachers and administrators.

And teach them to allow the statists to continue to rob us blind.

…I think, was Herbert Hoover.

The mythology about him is truly amazing. As Glenn says, he was the Barack Obama of his day. Except, of course, he actually had accomplishments in the real world before he became president and, as an engineer, at least understood basic math.

…because people aren’t stupid.

Well, except for the people who thought this would work.