The Point Is The Plan, Guys

Our "Liberal, Obama-Loving Media" goes straight after the President with Scott Wilson's Politico.com-worthy hatchet job on the front page of the WaPo.

In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed "an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics."

It hasn't taken long for the recriminations to return -- or for the Obama administration to begin talking about the unwelcome "inheritance" of its predecessor.

Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems "inherited" from the Bush administration, using increasingly bracing language to describe the challenges his administration is up against. The "deepening economic crisis" that the president described six days after taking office became "a big mess" in remarks this month to graduating police cadets in Columbus, Ohio.

"By any measure," he said during a March 4 event calling for government-contracting reform, "my administration has inherited a fiscal disaster."

Obama's more frequent and acid reminders that former president George W. Bush left behind a trillion-dollar budget deficit, a 14-month recession and a broken financial system have come at the same time Republicans have ramped up criticism that the current president's policies are compounding the nation's economic problems.

Obama had initially been content to leave partisan defense strategy to his proxies, but as the fiscal picture has continued to darken, he has appeared more willing to risk his image as a politician who is above petty partisanship to personally remind the public of Bush's legacy.

If the GOP talking point that Obama Is The Worst President Ever is to take hold, Obama's defenses, in this case "Bush left me with a disaster on an economy" have to be hacked apart like Freddy Kreuger's handiwork at a cheerleader camp. It's pretty obvious to me that the most recent GOP point of "Obama's trying to do too much" has failed. Obama has been able to counter with "Bush didn't do enough, so I have to do multiple things at once." Hard-working, dilligent Obama of course wins that argument over President Working Vacation, so today we see the Village rolling out the newest way to bash Obama: Blaming Bush is nothing more than partisan rancor.

Seems exceedingly simple to me, but John Cole's stumped as to the nature of the piece and the normally reliable Steve Benen almost misses the point completely. This is the weekly GOP talking point memo for the Sunday Talking Head Shows where we'll see plenty of Republicans saying "You know it's too bad Obama is blaming Bush for this economy when he's now the one responsible for it."

Remember The Plan: Destroy. Obama. The Village is coming in hard with the assist here, and the GOP knows they have the Washington press on their side. When the Village is regurgitating GOP memos almost verbatim, you know they're still on the dark side.