This is so deliciously sweet it ought to have whipped cream on top and served up for desert at a fancy restaurant.

Jim Geraghty at NRO:

Today he mentioned a tax break for corporate jets six times. He didn't mention that he signed legislation preserving the tax code provision into law, or that the grand total of the savings of ending that tax break would be about $3 billion over ten years.

The man who flies anywhere he wants, anytime, cost-free, complained at great length that other people's private jets are insufficiently taxed. Tomorrow, Obama will fly on Air Force One to Philadelphia, Pa., to attend two DNC fundraisers, where he will probably again denounce the current tax rates on corporate jets, without anyone remarking on the irony.

What I think this reveals is that Barack Obama is not used to being challenged. Most of us have scoffed at his predictable straw men, his off-the-cuff references to tonsil-stealing doctors, his exhausted, "some on the right say we should take this extreme path, some on the left take this extreme path, but I choose this sensible path in the middle" framing of every issue.

As we recall from his attacks upon Paul Ryan at GWU, the Supreme Court justices at the State of the Union, and his jabs at Pete Hoekstra, Obama loves to go after his opponents in national addresses, with his targets in the audience, unable to respond. In the setting of the grandiose national address, there is rarely a rebuttal. Any interruption to dispute the facts - like, say, Rep. Joe Wilson yelling out, "You LIE!" during an address to Congress - comes across as rude to the office of the presidency. The Supreme Court is completely unused to being criticized to their faces; members of Congress are used to the back-and-forth of debates on the floor in which every accusation and assertion can be rebutted and cross-examined.

Obama will try and avoid debates this time around for that reason. Challenging his fact flakes on national TV while calling him out for his creation of straw men to buttress his arguments will be fairly easy pickings for a good debate opponent like Mitt Romney or Michelle Bachmann. I don't think he will debate unless he absolutely has to, and then if he debates more than once I will be surprised.

So far, I have yet to find a mainstream media source who recognizes the irony of Obama criticizing a tax break his own stimulus maintained. This means the president is free to continue dishonestly berating Republicans for it.

If you're keeping score, mark an assist for the MSM in this round.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky