Richard Wolffe wrote one of the worst books I've ever read about anything, let alone politics. By the time I finished it, I was dreaming of ways that I could commit suicide with it, so painful was the experience. The prospect of continuing to live on the same planet as Wolffe was too heinous to seriously contemplate. but them I started another book, and all was right with the world again.

Renegade: The Making of a President wasn't history, or even journalism, as much as it was a 368 page languid literary blowjob for Barack Obama. Now, I've read hundreds of memoirs by politicians, which are necessarily languid literary blowjobs, but only to themselves. There is a difference, you know.

Nothing was more shocking to me than the revelation that Obama was, in fact, black, to which almost a third of Wolffe's love letter is devoted. Renegade couldn't have been more homoerotic if Chris Matthews wrote it, but if you enjoy books that make you want to punch yourself in the face, I can't recommend it enough.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't point out that Mr. Wolffe is also MSNBC's analyst of note on the impossibly obvious. If there's a point that absolutely doesn't need to be made, you can rest assured that he's on Countdown with Keith Olbermann making it repeatedly. Every time I hear the man's voice, I die just a little bit more inside.

Which is why I should have avoided reading this column by Wolffe in The Daily Beast. But I do these things so you don't have to. Oh, and I'm a fucking daredevil. Everybody knows that.

"Obama's Plan to Split the GOP" is perhaps the single most determined example of avoiding reality in modern journalism, if in fact it can be called journalism. It posits that President Obama's tete-a-tete with the House Republicans yesterday was a brilliant beginnings of a political comeback that ensure candy and rainbows for us all until the end of time itself.

It was nothing of the sort. Obama was there because he had to be. He knows that he's hemorrhaging independents, and the appearance of bipartisanship might bring enough of them home to save the day. If given a proper choice, the president would probably prefer spending his day slamming his penis into a beehive to being in the company of John Boehner. And he's not alone in feeling that way.

Did he make the House Republicans look silly? Sure, but that wasn't the result of any tactical genius on his part. The House Republicans actually are silly, and changing their habitat isn't going to raise their collective IQs.

In an evenly matched campaign, Obama would have his ass handed to him in 2012. In just one year, he's managed the awesome feat of being defined as a radical and a technocrat, which are usually mutually exclusive. in a country where personal popularity (as opposed to job approval) is so important, being defined that way is the political kiss of death.

However, if the opposition can also be negatively defined, an incumbent will almost always win. And the GOP has a long and storied history of painting itself into corners when dealing with Democratic shutdowns.

Bill Clinton was immensely unpopular in 1993-'94 because it was felt that he was catering to the left of his party far too often. However, when the Democrats lost Congress, his left flank virtually disappeared and was replaced with the menace of a Republican opposition in the eyes of the country. As they usually do, the GOP over-reached and Clinton suddenly seemed very moderate in a nation that still hugs the center as much as possible. President Clinton virtually never mentioned Bob Dole by name in the '96 election, preferring to run against Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress. Clinton beat Dole by nine points.

Let's assume that the Democrats hold both houses this year, which most people think they will, although they'll lose a bunch a seats. The Republican caucus will almost certainly see this as an endorsement of their (largely nonexistent) platform instead of a repudiation of the Democrats. And just as surely, they'll mightily over-reach.

The GOP also doesn't have a presidential candidate worthy of the name, which, when coupled with the party divisions caused by the Tea Party movement, complicate a general election strategy greatly. Make no mistake about it, the Republicans are going to nominate a whore like Mitt Romney, but he's going to run on the Tea Party platform as opposed to whatever it is that he actually believes. And he's going to be crushed like a bug.

On the other hand, Obama just has to be Obama, who is and will probably remain personally popular. Unless he faces a primary challenge, the president will be able to ignore his left, which is a luxury Romney won't have with his right, as John McCain will certainly remind him.

The Democrats can afford to lose states like Virgina, North Carolina and Indiana, but Romney will have to take back every single state that Obama picked up in '08 just to win the squeaker that Bush did in 2004. And even under the rosiest possible scenario for the GOP, that's highly unlikely. States that were trending Democratic anyway; like Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico and New Hampshire are going to be virtually impossible to flip.

Instead of pointing to a goddamned map and the current slate of Republican presidential candidates, Richard Wolffe insists on painting Barack Obama as master of legislative ju-jitsu, which is entirely beside the point.

And that's why Richard Wolffe is a bore.