Today, the trade promotion authority bill President Obama has been hawking failed a test cloture vote thanks to the objections of Democrats. The only explanation for this is that Sens. Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren and all their supporters cleverly hid their racism for seven years of the Obama presidency so they could pull it out to sink this deal. Because we all know there is no possibility they genuinely objected to the contents of the deal on ideological or process grounds.

Due to abhorrent obstructionism, the vote went down 52-45. (It needed 60 votes.)

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats, in a rebuke of President Obama, on Tuesday blocked consideration of giving him power to accelerate a broad trade accord with Asia.

After more than six years battling Republicans on everything from his signature health care legislation to simply keeping the government open, Mr. Obama is at odds with his own party as he seeks a legislative capstone to his presidency. In some respects, that reflects the complicated politics of trade, which has always been harder for Democrats, their working-class constituents and backers in organized labor.

But Tuesday’s setback also highlighted a problem that has vexed Mr. Obama for most of his tenure in office: his difficulties with Congress. This time he is criticizing Democrats whose votes he now needs.

Now that it’s turned on Democrats, even the New York Times is noticing that the president’s famous charm offensive ks more offensive than charming.

The president “has made this more personal than he needed to,” said Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, after the 52-45 vote. Only one Democrat, Senator Tom Carper of Delaware, joined Republicans to support considering legislation that would give Mr. Obama authority to pursue the most sweeping trade accord since the North American Free Trade Agreement more than 20 years ago, and the procedural vote fell eight short of the 60 needed.

“Ultimately, it’s up to the president,” said Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican. “Does the president of the United States have enough clout with members of his own political party?”

Actively insulting the very people he needs to convince and then being oh-so-surprised they’re not champing at the bit to violate their beliefs to hand him a win? Imagine that. Luckily, Obama has called them to a special room at the White House to insult them tonight, so that should work well.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama held a “constructive session” with 10 Democratic senators on Tuesday after a vote in which they blocked the fast-track trade bill needed to finalize a Pacific trade pact, the White House said in a statement.

But it’s not just Brown and Warren who have suddenly become irretrievably racist. President Obama is a giant sexist. It wasn’t the gender pay gap at the White House or the all-male golf outings that convinced them, but now it’s official:

National Organization for Women (NOW) president Terry O’Neill on Wednesday called President Obama’s critique of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) sexist.

O’Neill told The Hill she took issue with Obama calling Warren by her first name during an interview with Yahoo News published Saturday.

“Yes, I think it is sexist,” O’Neill said. “I think the president was trying to build up his own trustworthiness on this issue by convincing us that Senator Warren’s concerns are not to be taken seriously. But he did it in a sexist way.”

Obama told Yahoo that Warren was opposing his trade agenda to further her own political brand.

“The truth of the matter is that Elizabeth is, you know, a politician like everybody else. And you know, she’s got a voice that she wants to get out there. And I understand that,” Obama told Yahoo.

O’Neill said Obama’s “clear subtext is that the little lady just doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

“I think it was disrespectful,” O’Neill said.

Brown had introduced the idea, and NOW raan with it.

Awww, yeah. In seriousness, as occasionally gratifying as it is to watch the Left turn this rhetorical ridiculousness on each other, it’s a terrible way to conduct a national debate or political discussion. Brown and Warren aren’t racist for disagreeing with the president, and the president is just doing his run-of-the-mill spoiled executive bit, not being sexist. But it behooves both sides to act as if the other is full of monsters in order to gain coverage and win the political argument by bullying the other side into submission. It happens to be blue on blue in this fight, but as we know well, they’re even better at turning it on us.

And, now for the most depressing (and true!) tweet about media coverage I’ve seen in quite some time:

Very clever of Brown to play the gender card w/ Warren/trade. You need to keep introducing angles to get the story covered.

— Dave Weigel (@daveweigel) May 12, 2015

As I said, it’s momentarily gratifying to watch, but ultimately unhealthy for the country that this is the incentive structure for those ostensibly leading our national conversations. We can always hope they’ll learn the

Hey, Guy Benson and I wrote a book on that! “End of Discussion”: You can preorder it here!

Here I am talking about the book and taking Bill to task on free speech on “The O’Reilly Factor” last night. Also, I made a butt joke.