Obama: incendiary rhetoric bad for you, good for me

This is worth re-blogging. From ABC News White House correspondent Jake Tapper's blog:

President Obama at the GOP House retreat, January 2010:

“We're not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterize whatever proposals are put out there as, ‘Well, you know, that's -- the other party's being irresponsible. The other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens. That the other party is doing X, Y, Z.”

President Obama today (4/13, while introducing his budget proposal):

 “One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates…This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.”

I don't begrudge politicians for posturing, exaggeration (50 million Americans?)  or even for talking out of both sides of their mouth, but the blatantly provacative and exploitative use of Down's syndrome kids and autistic kids is disgusting, as is the attempt to smear the R's as insensitive to these causes. So much for the notion that Obama was a uniter and not a divider.