Infantile

That's about the only word I can think of that adequately describes the right these days. I mean, first-graders have more dignity.

This is brought on by a couple of stories I've run across this morning. Let's start with this one, which gives us a heaping dose of whatever it is that the Republicans are dishing out these days, with an added helping of He Who Must Be Obeyed.

The scheduling conflict. Puh-leeze! It seems that Boehner knew all about it ahead of time, but he's such a statesman that he turned it into yet another "I'll hold my breath until I turn blue" moment. (Read that post -- it's pretty damning.)

"Obama's trying to destroy the country!" That we're hearing this from The Quasi-Official Head of the Republican Teaparty is no surprise. But that it's coming also from the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal -- well, that's not much of a surprise, either, is it?

Yet there is something more than inexperience or lack of character that defines this presidency: Mr. Obama came of age in a bubble of post-'60s liberalism that conditioned him to be an adversary of American exceptionalism. In this liberalism America's exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil—an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America's greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom.

Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself.

Because, you know, we're special.

Ed Schultz also had words to say about the scheduling nonsense.

Once again, this President has smoked 'em out. He has proven to the country one more time that he can't even schedule a speech to the joint session of the Congress without it being obstructed, that he one more time has proven to the country that the Republicans, their number one priority is not in line with the priorities of the American people and that is jobs. They're priority is their schedule, their tee time, their debate, their tax cuts, their deregulation, and they don't give a damn, nor do they respect the president of the United States or the office.

There's been speculation as to whether the president was engaging in another round of 11-dimensional chess. I don't see that he had to -- Boehner and his gang of whiners did all the work for him.