Currently blaring at the top of the page on Drudge. I can’t tell anymore: Is this racist or not?

If not, I think he just won my vote.

I understand the president’s concern, but I understand the concern of staff members at the White House. If you look at it from their perspective, they haven’t exactly been able to govern in the first year of their administration the way other administrations have, where you would theoretically have a period in which the new administration is allowed to pass some of the needed legislation.

Every state accepted stimulus money – some said they weren’t, but all accepted stimulus money – it was shocking that the vote on the stimulus money for the ARRA went along party lines. Here, with the healthcare legislation, they’re talking about negotiating to get one Republican senator to vote with them – they can’t get one Republican?

It’s not them, it just seems to be the point of view that: what we’re gonna do, in the middle of a recession – and it’s a good thing that neither of the political parties were thinking of doing this in the Great Depression – but in the middle of the recession is: ‘we’re going to leave off, sit around, and blame the other side.’ See, it’s all “their fault.”

So – from their perspective, losing any exec seats, losing any Cong. Seats, losing any seats in the State Senate is very important.

As much as it grieves me to defend The One, (a) is this really a knock on him? It sounds like Paterson’s blaming congressional turmoil on the GOP’s recalcitrance, “party of no” and all that jazz. If he wanted to rub Obama’s face in the deadlock, he would have knocked him for not having a strong enough hold on his own party to iron out a compromise between Blue Dogs and progressives. And (b) remind me again, why are we supposed to be miffed that Obama’s nudging Paterson towards the exit? The guy, quite simply, is an electoral catastrophe. Think I’m exaggerating? If state AG Andrew Cuomo is the Democratic nominee for governor next year, he beats Giuliani by fully 13 points. If Paterson’s the nominee, Giuliani wins — by 17 points. Head to head in the Democratic primary, Cuomo tops the incumbent governor by, wait for it, 46 points. He’s a sitting duck, in other words, which means the only question is whether he’s going to step aside with dignity or hold on and force Cuomo to put him out of his misery in a potentially rancorous primary. That’s why The One’s leaning on him. Well, that and the racism, of course.