"He was the baddest ass on the block, and the only president in the hall"

[impik]

It's a wonder he didn't laugh out loud.

Looking out over the frauds and lightweights and bland hunks of man-cheese that make up the assembled political establishment, and beyond them to a spavined and impotent political culture that would embarrass any self-respecting monkey house, and beyond that to a country willing to abandon almost anything it once deemed important to the first huckster who turns up weeping on cable television, Barack Obama must have been sorely tempted to let out one final, mighty guffaw and close his first State of the Union address with the words, "And I am the only president of the United States in this room, motherfuckers," after which he would return to the White House and eat Mitch McConnell's gonads on toast...
....
He had a whole truckload of ideas on making college more affordable. He talked tough on regulatory reform. He even mocked the Republicans on the spending freeze that was so unpopular with Obama's own base. When some hay-shaker snickered about the fact that the freeze doesn't start until 2011, he pointed out, "That is the way budgeting is done." And get that weak-ass shit out of my house...

...
There was a weight to him last night that wasn't there during the campaign, as though he's spent a year in the job and realized quite recently how goddamn hard it is to work with cowards and morons to get anything whatsoever done, and that he realized even more recently that he really might be up to the job. All that serene confidence on the campaign trail always struck me as affectation, as armor against a job he was chasing that seemed to grow more miserable by the moment. No sane person should have wanted to be president that much in 2008. If he was having trouble finding his feet, it was because the presidency was more of a morass than it ever was.

...
Last night, though, he had to know. You don't do what he did unless you know — calling out not only the political opposition for its opportunistic nihilism, and not only the United States Senate for its structural inertia and for the remarkable number of venal gobshites among its membership, but the Supreme Goddamn Court of the United States, sitting right there in front of him, for handing down a recent decision that guarantees that every election for the foreseeable future will have all the essential integrity and nobility of a Moroccan bazaar. You don't do that, getting Justice Sam Alito mumbling under his breath like a drunk on a subway, unless you know you're the only president in the room...

...
He still overrates the American people as a political commonwealth, and he remains resolutely determined to seek out the good in a political opposition that wants his head on a plate. But, last night, it became clear that he'd better know what he's doing, for all our sakes, because last night, he was the baddest ass on the block, and the only president in the hall.


The entire terrifically written article by Charles P. Pierce: http://www.esquire.com/the-side/opinion/reaction-to-state-of-the-union-2010-012810?click=pp#ixzz0dxhi20uY

[truedelphi]

1. I'd be able to see the guy as being the baddest ass on the block

if he had not found the time to hug Giethner.

ugh!

[DFLforever]

3. Geithner is pretty badass himself right now

and everyone's scapegoat.. That's why the Pres hugged him.

[Mike_03]

11. I couldn't agree more. Tim Geithner has done a great job but he is the new

sacrificial lamb.

It is disgraceful.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. K&R

[DeSwiss]

4. Mmmm, okay.....

...but I'll have to pass on the gonads on toast entree. Especially Republican gonads.

- How to they harvest those suckers anyway, microscopic surgery???

K&R

[DFLforever]

5. "He still overrates the American people

as a political commonwealth.."

That he does. His most endearing weakness, imo.

[JohnnyLib2]

6. "Who else is there?"

Indeed. Amazing piece of writing. I think he's captured the essence very well.
K & R

[Bucky]

7. I started a discussion on this article earlier today. But I'm kicking your thread...

... because I just fucking love the word "spavined"

[depakid]

8. Republican strategists are laughing at all the "big talk"

As they prepare to kick some conciliatory, bipartisan caving ass next year.

Worked well for them over the past 12 months- and they're no doubt salivating at the prospect of letting the Dems flop around making concessions to "popular" corporate interests again in an election year.

[Th1onein]

9. Popular corporate interests, my ass.

You're right. I'm fucking sick of the Dems caving in on shit that is FOR THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. Only the idiot Republican base thinks these guys are doing anything for them. Fucking Congress should know better and stand up for the American people. We pay the taxes, shouldn't some of this money be coming to us in the form of health care, instead of fighting wars for Halliburton and Exxon Mobil?

[Kablooie]

10. But now the big issue is -- how does he move them out of the way? They block everything.

[depakid]

12. Ain't gonna do it by cajoling them- and apealing to their "higher mindedness" and "good nature"

:rofl: