To call someone a “dick” is a colloquial shortform way of saying they’ve acted in a snide or petty or selfish or brusque manner. MSNBC contributor Mark Halperin is a rightie, of course, and since the topic at hand was (apparently) the debt-ceiling negotiations, what he was saying was that his Republican pallies have told him that President Obama was playing a kind of snippy hardball with them.

To which I say, “Then he’s doing something right!”

You can’t be mean and tough and “Chicago gangsta” enough when it comes to the radical corporate-fellating right. Any pain and stress and discomfort and difficulty you can throw their way is a good thing. Obama’s big failing as far as lefties like myself are concerned is that he’s been far too obliging and gracious towards nutbag convervatives. You can’t treat them as you would a reasonable, fair-minded person who isn’t beholden to ideological purity. You have to push their faces into the cactus and kick them them in the ribcage, over and over and over and over. And then you need to really get mean.