Open Memo

... to Michael Steele and everyone else who'll be 'weighing in' today on President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize:

Hi.

In a vacuum, it would be fair to ask what the president did to earn this honor. But we are not operating in a vacuum. Your criticism, bound to last at least throughout the weekend, comes on the heels of celebration that Chicago did not land the recently awarded Olympic Games. The U.S. lost out on hosting the Olympics, and you dinks celebrated -- because it meant the president 'lost.' I swear to God, I saw for a second this morning that CNN was following up 'coverage' of the Nobel with a piece on the president's previous vow to end Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and with sound down, I honestly wondered whether CNN was warning the right about the president's intentions or citing the fact that DADT has not yet been repealed as a failure on the part of the president, and criticizing him for it. That is how crazy CNN and the other loud voices on the right have become; it seemed totally reasonable to me that CNN might be resorting to "Oh yeah? Well maybe he won the stupid Nobel Peace Prize, but he hasn't repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell, has he?"

So the president's supporters could be forgiven for ignoring Steele and the rest of the freakshow, but again, in a vacuum, I think it's a fair question. So let me decipher this development for the banshees: The guy YOU got elected, the one whose decisions, torture authorization, warrantless wiretaps, and economic legacy you still support ... he was SO bad that the Norwegian Nobel committee gave the guy who succeeded him the prize just for not being the other guy. So, you know, maybe shut up for a minute, let the man try to fix the economy, health care, and everything else he inherited.

I saw a poll yesterday saying Republican congressmen had an approval rating of 29 percent. I mean, just stop already. It's insulting how stupid you must think we are that you assume we don't see right through you.