Jim DeMint Calls Obama A 'Bully'

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) called President Obama a "bully" Wednesday at an event in South Carolina for his targeted remarks about the Supreme Court. The HeraldOnline reports:

In Rock Hill, DeMint criticized President Barack Obama for being inexperienced and attacked the health care law now under review by the U.S. Supreme Court for trying to “force people to buy things they don’t want.”

DeMint called Obama a “bully” for recent comments he made against the highest court and said the president and his administration “believe Americans are stupid.”

DeMint is not the first Republican to call the president a bully. South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley used the word Tuesday to describe Obama's comments about the health care hearings and Paul Ryan's 'radical' budget.

"What is amazing is what a bully President Obama has suddenly become," she told Fox News. "Here was a man that came in with 'hope and change,' and now he's bullying his way. He's bullying his way on Paul Ryan, saying that he's not coming up with an adequate budget. Now he's bullying the Supreme Court, saying, 'No, they won't reverse this, they won't go against us on this.' That's not how things work. He has to lead. He's shown no sort of leadership when it comes to balancing the budget. He's shown no leadership when it comes to allowing the states to do the will of the people. He continues to say no. To everything."

Obama told reporters this week that he is "confident" the Affordable Care Act will stand because the Supreme Court will not take an "unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress." He also blasted the House GOP budget, calling it "thinly veiled social Darwinism" and a "prescription for decline."

Also on HuffPost:

Comments

[shawman65]

12:28 PM on 04/10/2012

He's not a bully. He's a Marxist.

[jdevienne]

02:11 PM on 04/07/2012

I hope Sen. DeMint never encounters a real bully.

[Andrea Blackwell]

10:52 PM on 04/06/2012

I can't keep up with how many times he flipped on his own commentary!

[Andrea Blackwell]

10:50 PM on 04/06/2012

2016 is too long for you.
It's fine to throw war after war, spending crazy money to pad your wallets? Wow, you guys just can't kill us off fast enough, can ya?
Had your party not treated OUR investments like a congressional slush fund and crashed the nation, we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we?
He talks of compromise? GOP never wanted to cooperate, period.
And after complaining about the fear-mongering, he goes on to spread more with that crap about having 1 to 2 years....well, yeah, if we let GOP continue 'business' as usual...get OUT of the way, already.
Oh good grief, reality check, PLEASE!
He's not saying anything new since the 80s and they blew their chance.
Don't credit Ron Paul's parrottings, he's the corporate plantation's DREAM girl. I wonder why they don't support him.
Moon colony - Newt spent our college money. Who ya gonna get to build it? We don't even have decent trains!
LOL..dissing Occupy? Again, what did you THINK was going to happen? Retire already, we don't need ya.
Step away from the Enron calculator, nothing's trickling down anywhere.
You don't want to throw people out into the street? ROFLMAO
That did it.. gotta stop listening to this guy...I just ate.

[crabbyoldart]

05:43 AM on 04/07/2012

Congress has forced us to buy so many wars that the US can no longer support a quality of life it once had....forcing people to buy insurance is an odd issue to me - because everyone gripes about paying for those people who show up at the hospital ER and how it is ruining our health care....insurance companies should be banned - they get paid as a gamble that they will make more money and not have to pay off the bet....and then they deny, deny, deny....while they are negotiating with the medical and pharmaceutical industries on prices....you buy, they deny. DeMint is talking about forcing...well I'm sick of the governmental education system, the automobile industry (mass transit is a better choice), the tax system, congressional lobbyists and PACs and Super PACs - and Super Committees (if all of congress can't do it, why would a few members of congress get to) - and I'm sick of congress, voiding women of their intelligent right to make decisions for themselves, for any candidate to blow about religion, and that skin color really matters when we are all human beings - mostly I'm sick of primal vision discrimination. I despise our political parties. BULLY - congress is the bully - SCOTUS is the bully who made corporations people and corporations able to take over the land people worked hard to own "blighted" and Emininent domain - and I'm sick of wars - all of them.

[Andrea Blackwell]

04:12 AM on 04/08/2012

Thank you for the reality check.
We pay for it one way or another. If they'd just step AWAY from the Enron calculators, we'd have this all worked out. But the waste is obscene! We're being middle-manned to death and this is no surprise to those opposed big pharm in the first place. And why? All because Big Pharm didn't want to compete with generics. (read 'knock offs') They're killing us with greed-driven intellectual property profiteering. (heh, and they thought I wasn't paying attention in High School)
This is our HEALTH we're talking about, not Gucci bags.
And here they are, trying to take away birth control. For what? So they can breed a generation of brand new taxable drones of unwanted children?

[a man]

07:32 PM on 04/06/2012

The big problem I have with Obama is his health care plan. His plan is forcing people to buy health insurance when they may not need/want/can't afford it. I'm disabled----if I go on "Obama-care", then one of the medications that I NEED won't be covered. And it is the most expensive one. I can not take the generic brand of this medication, I need the brand name. But the government issued insurance plans will not cover the brand name medications if a generic is available. But the generic gives me seizures.

That is the Obama health care plan for you

[Easy123]

02:59 PM on 04/06/2012

You GOOPers seem to really believe that if you spout lies many times that makes it true. DeMutt and his ilk are responsible for Americas decline. No matter how you spin it, it will come out the same. You want respect offer something besides obstruction and many will listen. This do nothing critism is very tiring, because it is so ineffective. Pffffffft

[marymeade2]

03:19 PM on 04/06/2012

Republicans spouting lies. That is a lie in itself. He along with his entire staff and every Democrat in Congress are bully's. I've never wittnessed anything quite so horrible in one Presidential term. I can't even imagine what we would be facing if there are four more years. It's absolutely dispicable. Despite the wars and the spending Bush did, he wasn't vicious. He still managed to keep a cool head, do what he thought was best without pitting everyone against each other. At least not until his last two terms when the democrats got both houses of Congress. There are no bigger liars than Democrats. They'll say anything at any time. It works because they rely on a dumbed down constituency to perpetuate the lies for them. Just read most of these posts.

[Fergie1]

05:05 AM on 04/07/2012

Think you need a mirror mary. No, that's right dear, Bush and Cheney weren't vicious- they only approved torture and rendition.

The GOP/TP are the ones who are despicable and you're a part of that. Hurling the most hideous comments about President Obama and even about the First Lady Michelle. None of you condemn that behavior therefore you are a part of it and that dear lady is what divides people.

[huffpostusercares]

10:50 AM on 04/07/2012

It's a different world than when Bush was president. Technology and the Internet have made it a different world and it appears a more vicious one in politics.
We need to focus on the big picture for this country and not tolerate destructive people and politics from either side. To pit Republicans against Democrats and vice versa only hurts all of us. Thank you.

[Blizzardo]

01:26 PM on 04/06/2012

I guess this is how to do it without being a bully
I'm trying to see what makes it different

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QffazQIdVlM

[maxfax]

12:09 PM on 04/06/2012

Funny, the GOP counts on ignorance of their electorate to keep them in office.

[oldwhitefemdem]

03:19 PM on 04/06/2012

More than that. The Republic Party spokespeople are now accusing the President of the things they have been accused of and assuming nobody will notice. They invented attacks on SCOTUS as being judicial activists until Bush and Bush the slower packed the court with their hand-picked theocons.

They are saying the Democrats won't say yes to legislation, months after the President said it about Boner and Cantor.

They have practiced bullying since 1981 and have been perfecting it ever since.

There are many examples but one of the more recent is the constant harping on the Democrats for not passing a budget AND accusing them of passing a budget that increased the deficit. They never see the contradiction and assume no one will notice.

Demint said that the employers in his state were unable to get workers to come to work for them because they still had unemployment benefits available. Then Demint complained about the unemployment in his state. Sounds like a job mecca to me. Hurry up you all - there are lots of jobs in South Carolina. Check in with Gov it's a great day in South Carolina Haley. She has a job waiting.

[maxfax]

05:05 AM on 04/07/2012

"The Republic Party spokespeople are now accusing the President of the things they have been accused of and assuming nobody will notice. " ... Not only NOT notice, not understand, not care, as they prefer to hate first, think, umm, never.

[kbeth]

12:08 PM on 04/06/2012

Yeah, the new Republican bashObama talking point- Obama is a bully, stupid, STUPID tools repeat it endlessly, I guess it beats the talking point that he was weak and spineless when he was trying to negotiate compromise

[Fergie1]

04:55 AM on 04/07/2012

Fanned!

[4Hilrbrt]

10:14 AM on 04/06/2012

He is a bully....never had any friends when he was growing up....no one could stand him.....excent when he flipped to the Barry mode and befriended his users.

[stvinw]

09:00 AM on 04/06/2012

Of course Obama's a bully.

It's a perquisite for being a Chicago thug

[oldwhitefemdem]

03:20 PM on 04/06/2012

Seriously?

[prawn259]

08:57 AM on 04/06/2012

kind of amusing to read the conservative comments about who the bully is... all the foaming at the mouth and name calling came to the surface pretty fast. Guess it's apparent who the real bullies are.

[maxfax]

12:10 PM on 04/06/2012

You bet, f&f.

[Fergie1]

04:57 AM on 04/07/2012

You got that right. F & F.

[prawn259]

08:49 AM on 04/06/2012

Yawn

[Boatnmaniac]

08:34 AM on 04/06/2012

Seems to me DeMint and the rest of the GOP seem to be having a bit of a self-image and inferiority complex. It's simply laughable that they are complaining about Obama being a bully. I watched Obama criticizing Ryan's budget and expressing his opinion about the outcome of the pending SCOTUS decision on Obamacare. There was nothing bullying about it. But to those who have self-image and inferiority issues, I guess anyone who expresses and opinion opposite of theirs is a bully.

[acts4him]

10:59 PM on 04/06/2012

Obama's the pinnacle of politicians who you can't really tell what they really mean sometimes. I'm not sure I agree with the bullying comment, sounds like a democratic exaggeration coming from the republicans, but the fact that they specifically mention the commerce clause (the whole ACA underpinning to attempt the facade at constitutionality), means they are either worried or are trying to influence (pre-bully).

[treasuredtrophie]

08:17 AM on 04/06/2012

Obama is going to have a rough summer. Shame this country so divided. Obamais going to see that we don't love him we have hasd enough spending and nothing to show for it. The economy will get a lot better an faster when his laws and regs are caneled. Those on the left mostly don't care there no the ones who own businesses, there entitlement or Gov workers. Us real tax payers have had enough. Most of us started with cars with holes in them big deal. Thisis now not then and you have and are failing. In to far over your head.

[Boatnmaniac]

09:44 AM on 04/06/2012

Keep living in your pipe-dream world. The GOP/TP is the main culprit for the country being so divided with their "My way or the highway!" approach to negotiation/compromise. The economy has grown steadily since the recession trough (mid-2009) with over 24 straight months of job gains (3.5M)...3.9M private sector gains...while govt has gotten smaller (-400K jobs). Obama's approval rating has risen consistently since the low point of last summer and since Jan more people approve of him than disapprove. His likeability remains very high (70%+ of the population) with all of the major polls since last summer consistently showing Obama will beat any of the GOP candidates and his lead in those polls is growing. Most Americans want more regulation of the bank and financial industries, not less, because most Americans see that deregulation of these industries is what caused the economic collapse that stole their life's savings and don't believe that making the rich richer while pushing more of the burden onto the lower and middle classes will make this country stronger or improve the financial positions of the average American. Obama's accomplished much of what he'd promised and that makes him a success, not a failure...your not liking what he's done doesn't mean he's a failure, it simply means you don't like it. I'm a real taxpayer and you don't speak for me or many other taxpayers. So, dream on, my man, dream on.

[4Hilrbrt]

10:10 AM on 04/06/2012

How do you like the $ 5.50/gal marine fuel price thanks to your POS Potus.

[acts4him]

11:04 PM on 04/06/2012

Who cares about the economy if the government are liar, corrupt, supporting questionable legislation? Let's get back to integrity and the nations problems will (magically?) go away. No, I'm serious, not dreaming. Deal with the MOST important items first.

Oh, and it was the democratic "my way" that gave us the ACA debacle.

[marymeade2]

03:38 PM on 04/06/2012

That's exactly what FDR's Secretary of the Treasury said. "We've been spending for 8 years and having nothing to show for it." FDR also created class warfare between the wealthy and the middle and lower classes. He knew that if he could create this struggle he'd be re elected and it worked. It's unfortunate that so many people don't think for themselves, isn't it.