The Bully Boys Take the Stage

Go figure. One day after the unions enter the debate over health care, violence breaks out. Who could have seen that coming?

Oh, right.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina:

“If you get hit, we will punch back twice as hard,” Messina said, according to an official who attended the meeting…

Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.

Perhaps the White House should heed the advice of Peggy Noonan, who has a strong column in today's WSJ:

All of this is unnecessarily and unhelpfully divisive and provocative. They are mocking and menacing concerned citizens. This only makes a hot situation hotter. Is this what the president wants? It couldn’t be. But then in an odd way he sometimes seems not to have fully absorbed the awesome stature of his office. You really, if you’re president, can’t call an individual American stupid, if for no other reason than that you’re too big. You cannot allow your allies to call people protesting a health-care plan “extremists” and “right wing,” or bought, or Nazi-like, either. They’re citizens. They’re concerned. They deserve respect.

The Democrats should not be attacking, they should be attempting to persuade, to argue for their case. After all, they have the big mic. Which is what the presidency is, the big mic.

Looks like we can count that as another broken promise. Looks like he's more interested in winning, no matter the cost. Obama's conciliatory speeches were "words...just words..."

posted by Slublog at 09:07 AM

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