A brief excerpt from Wednesday morning’s lengthy Morning Jolt:

Obama to Critics: I Understand Only Most of You Are Crazy Conspiracy Theorists
AP: “President Barack Obama says he believes the Tea Party is built around a ‘core group’ of people who question whether he is a U.S. citizen and believe he is a socialist. But beyond that, Obama tells NBC he recognizes the movement involves ‘folks who have legitimate concerns’ about the national debt and whether the government is taking on too many difficult issues simultaneously.”
A guy who has dramatically expanded the federal government’s role in banks, student loans, auto making, health care, real estate, insurance, and energy industries is lamenting that people are calling him a socialist. What more does he have to do before the label becomes less than outlandish, establish SMERSH? Note the not-too-subtle sleight of hand in the way Obama lumps together Birthers with the general opposition to him. I haven’t been to a tea party since last fall, but has anybody seen any signs or chants focusing on the Kenyan Secret Agent theory? Isn’t the general outrage focused a bit more on the here and now and how we’re getting the rawest deal since Arnold Schwarzenegger took on the mob? (Pardon me, I meant the raw f’ing deal, as Vice President Coprolalia would put it.) President Obama, we’ve moved on from your Kenyan birth. It’s time you did the same.