And a mess of Bam's barbecue

By Zandar 

And Fox Nation leaves this in a bag on America's doorstep, lights it on fire, rings the bell and runs (h/t Oliver Willis).

Ahh, the president's birthday celebration had black people at it and didn't create jobs! This is where we are right now, it's a brutally long campaign season, folks... and the rampant, ugly, and now massively overt racism by the GOP and their enablers is only beginning. People ask me how President Obama can put up with such drooling idiocy, and I remind them that the president is never the true audience for shock-jock racism like this.

In a sick way, you have to admire the blue-steel hatred Fox has for the man. When the dog whistles are put away and the megaphones are brought out instead, it's proof that the president's most recent maneuver has demoralized the Tea Party faithful and that it's time to throw the red meat into the pit to get some action going (which gives more "moderate" conservative pundits the chance to pretend to disavow the bomb-throwing to look "centrist and principled").

It must mean, then, that the rank-and-file Tea Party disagree with John "Orange Julius" Boehner's assessment that the GOP got 98% of what it wanted in the debt deal. Indeed, many Americans are furious at the Republicans in the wake of this week's deal and the weeks of hostage-taking that preceded it.

Time both to fire up the base and to take the higher ground at the same time while Eric Cantor blames the extension of federal unemployment benefits for causing unemployment itself, and vows to hold it hostage next.  Always onwards to the next Pyrrhic victory, our GOP friends.