Ed Schultz talked to the United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard about the "anonymous White House official" who decided to go shoot their mouth off to the Drudge rag Politico and slam labor for supporting Bill Halter in the Democratic Senate race in Arkansas. Gerard said he is extremely disappointed in what was said and that the person who said it is entitled to their opinion but not to make that opinion anonymously and that if the matter is not cleared up by the President it could likely fester.

Gerard made it clear that the objective of labor is not to be the "ATM Machine" of the Democratic Party and that Blanche Lincoln was not representing their members' interests.

He expressed his disappointment with Bill Clinton for going out there and campaigning against labor for Blanche Lincoln and said he'd do it again because they're obligated to stand up for the rights of working people. Leo, I refrained from doing any posts on Bill Clinton campaigning for Lincoln because I don't think I could have written anything about it when I first watched him in action without the post being full of obscenities every other word and ending with telling him to bite me, so you're being way kinder to Clinton than I would have been capable of.

Gerard is still giving the President the benefit of the doubt about the comments coming out of the White House. I'm not. If he disagreed with what one of his aides said to Politico, he should have said so immediately. Apparently he doesn't care if he pisses off labor any more than Rahmbo does - who is the one I suspect called up Politico, since taking cheap shots at liberal Democrats seems to be a hobby of his.

Organized labor knows what side of the debate they're on. The White House on the other hand seems confused about who helped put them in office and thinks that kicking the unions and progressives in the teeth is somehow a good idea just months before a midterm election. I guess we'll see how that genius plan works out for them this November.