Get a clue poutragers! (updated)

Sometimes the only thing left to do with the poutrager crowd is to laugh at them. With all of their talk about President Obama being naive, the truth is that they wouldn't know a political strategy if one bit them in the nose.

Todays object lesson...

As I'm sure you're aware, the deadline for the Congressional Super Committee is looming in less than two weeks. If they can't come up with an agreement on deficit reduction by then, triggered cuts will be set to go into place on January 1, 2013. As usual, Republicans are being intransigent about including any meaningful new revenue in the mix and so a deal isn't looking real good right now.

Because the triggered cuts will include over $500 billion in defense spending, Republicans have been preparing legislation to restore those cuts should the Super Committee fail.

Yesterday Defense Secretary Panetta warned of dire consequences to the military and national security if the cuts to defense were implemented.

Cue poutrage.

How's that for taking a page out of the Bush/Cheney playbook?

Then today President Obama talked on the phone with the Co-Chairs of the Super Committee.

The President also made clear that he will not accept any measure that attempts to turn off part of the sequester [triggers].

Get the picture?



But of course another set of poutragers actually think the President and his Defense Secretary are working at odds with one another.

That puts Obama in contrast with his own Defense Secretary, who thinks that Congress must sink the defense trigger or we’ll all be killed in our beds by scary Terrorists.

Folks, these are the very same people who always complain that President Obama doesn't know how to apply political pressure to get what he wants. And then when he demonstrates so perfectly that he is very capable of doing exactly that, they completely miss what's going on right in front of their faces.

Seriously, these folks need to figure out how to get a clue!

Update: BooMan noticed.

So, the president is now bringing the strongest lobbying group in Washington, the Pentagon, down on the rank-and-file Republicans.