Once More Into the Breach: White House Laughs at Santelli

The President appears to think Rick Santelli is some kind of laughing stock, as he also does you and I.

At the presidential press briefing today, press secretary Robert Gibbs eagerly responded to a reporter's question about Rick Santelli's rant amid sympathetic, angry traders at the CME Group in Chicago.

"I've watched Mr. Santelli on cable the past 24 hours or so," Gibbs said, according to an account by the newssite Politico. "I'm not entirely sure where Mr. Santelli lives or in what house he lives, but the American people are struggling every day to meet their mortgages, stay in their jobs, pay their bills, send their kids to school.

"I think we left a few months ago the adage that if it was good for a derivatives trader that it was good for Main Street," the White House spokesman continued. "I think the verdict is in on that."

Gibbs contended Santelli "has argued, I think quite wrongly, that this plan won't help everyone."

"This plan helps people who have been playing by the rules. ... I would encourage him to read the president's plan. ... I'd be more than happy to have him come here to read it. I'd be happy to buy him a cup of coffee – decaf," Gibbs said.

News flash for Obama, nobody outside of Washington is laughing.