At a fundraiser in San Jose yesterday, President Obama slammed the crowd at the Fox/Google GOP debate for booing a gay soldier, projecting the behavior of a few rude audience members onto more than 5,000 debate-goers and the entire GOP.

“Some of you here may be folks who actually used to be Republicans but are puzzled by what’s happened to that party, are puzzled by what’s happening to that party,” Obama said. “I mean, has anybody been watching the debates lately? You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change. It’s true. You’ve got audiences cheering at the prospect of somebody dying because they don’t have health care and booing a service member in Iraq because they’re gay.”

In an interview with Brian Kilmeade on “Kilmeade and Friends” radio, Fox News anchor Bret Baier — who was actually present at the debate — today set the record straight (quite apart from correcting the president’s lack of pronoun-antecedent agreement). (To listen to the audio file, click here.)

“The audience was, I think, 5,500, maybe,” Baier said. “Huge, huge audience. And the boos on that gay soldier I would say may have been two people, maybe three, out of 5,500. Now, it was loud. It was audible. It was a cavernous facility — the Orange County Convention Center. But … it would be painting with a broad brush to say that the crowd booed the gay soldier.”

But disdain for the subtle niceties of the facts has long characterized Obama’s speeches — and likely will continue to mark his remarks. Today, for example, at a LinkedIn-hosted townhall in Mountain View, Calif., the president claimed we presently have the lowest tax rates since the 1950s. In the first place, that depends on what income bracket you’re looking at — top or bottom. But, even more importantly, that claim conveniently ignores the truth that the total tax burden is rising to the highest level in history. Just one example among many that indicates just how expert the president is at skewing information to suit his purposes.

But more broadly, regarding his Sunday speech in San Jose, ripping into Republicans — half the people he’s supposedly serving right now — was purely unpresidential. Keith Koffler captures it perfectly:

It’s one thing to lambaste your opponents and their ideas. But the president of the United States should not be describing the other Party as un-American. It’s worse than sordid, divisive politics. It’s an ignominious, even somewhat frightening thing for a president to do, and it demonstrates a real ignorance on the part of Obama about the Constitutional role of his position.

Progs are pleased with the president’s newly harsh, strident tone — but the rest of the country should be on high alert for any more inappropriate comments coming from the guy who is supposed to be looking out for the best interests of all of us — not just for what’s in the supposed best interest of his reelection. By relentlessly bringing his diatribes to light, we can make sure he has to think of the former to even have a chance at securing the latter.