For a guy who claimed he would end business as usual in Washington, President Obama sure engages in a lot of Washington business-as-usual.

On Tuesday, the President delivered a speech in which he all but said Republicans want to starve the poor and throw old people out into the streets. It was a shameless partisan assault decorated with his now standard and predictable deflections that, hey, these are not his views, they're the views of unnamed objective outside observers.

All Presidents are entitled to make their partisan cases, and there is nothing wrong with a President jabbing the opposition. It is getting tiresome, though, that this President continues to do so while claiming that he is not doing so. No one save his most blind allies believes that, and it sure would be nice if more members of the national press corps called him on it. Were a Republican President to engage in such aggressively partisan attacks while claiming to be above the playing of political games, we would never hear the end of it. But too often Obama gets a pass.

He gets that pass while demonizing not only his Republican opponents, but also the Supreme Court, business executives and owners, churches, the wealthy, and generally everyone who disagrees with him. He even enlists the Russians to join his disinformation campaign, and yet he somehow manages to escape being labeled a disingenuous, fear-mongering political hack.

It's amazing what charm and left-wing political views can do for a guy.