Wow! NBC News Calls Obama 'Herbert Hoover'

(Mediaite) - If President Obama’s goal this week was to alienate and anger just about everyone then it would seem he has succeeded. Last night’s late-breaking news that the president would announce a three year spending freeze on most domestic programs during tomorrow’s State of the Union has met with angry responses on the left — Obama is the new Hoover! Which is quite a long drop from the other Depression-era president he routinely drew comparisons to last year.

Nate Silver calls the decision “a mistake on par with John McCain’s ‘suspending my campaign’ gaffe.” Marc Ambinder speculates that it could be seen as reactive, though the ‘middle’ may be comforted by the sound of “spending freeze” no doubt a large motivator in this decision. John Carney of Business Insider pointed out to me earlier this morning that “We spent more bailing out AIG than will be saved by Obama’s spending freeze” and that decisions such as these are often “a policy people employ when they lack ideas.” (Carney also dug up a video of Obama arguing against the spending freeze back in 2008.) Already-ticked-off Paul Krugman calls it (among other dire things) “appalling on every level.” But the harshest response thus far came from Rachel Maddow last night who just excoriated the President. Hell hath no fury like a liberal scorned. Whew.