Way to be a community organizer, spokesman Gibbs! In a novel approach to drumming up excitement and support before the looming midterm elections, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs recently decided to abuse, belittle and insult a significant portion of the democratic party base:
During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.
“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.” The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying,
“They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”
That’s nice. At least now we know that all that silly talk about change was strictly window dressing for the unwashed masses. I guess I’m such a clueless idiot: I never knew that Canadian healthcare was a bad thing.
Glenn Greenwald provides a convenient rundown of some of the things we crack-smoking lefties might legitimately be miffed about; he also went back in the archives and found Barack Obama repeatedly encouraging his supporters to keep him accountable and criticize him when he didn’t deliver. I guess it took him a while to realize that we’d take him up on that suggestion — but given how much and how consistently he’s failed he surely can’t be surprised by how much he’s being criticized?
It’s at least vaguely refreshing to get this dose of “fuck off and die, you lazy ungrateful hippie scum” from a named member of the junta administration — up until now, their idea of transparency has consisted of some anonymous official spewing forth random invectives against perceived enemies on the left. I’ll be sure to keep all of this in mind when the Obama campaign comes a’knockin’ in a few short months for help with his re-election efforts. Good luck with that…
Update: Greg Sargent runs some recent poll numbers that imply liberal democrats still *love* Obama as much as ever. I don’t know what those people are smoking, but when Greg asks:
Given that Obama is still polling extremely well among liberals in multiple polls, it’s unclear why the White House overreacts to liberal criticism.
I can’t help but wonder if the answer is simply that the criticism strikes home? Update: Also.
