It looked to me to be some sort of joke they intended to play on the producers. On yesterday’s Morning Joe, Time magazine’s Mark Halperin, asked his take on Barack Obama’s Wednesday press conference, said the President came off like a “dick.” That’s his word, not mine.

He said they might need a delay. The production crew may have been asleep at the switch. They did not delay it. It got out there on live television. Halperin apologized. MSNBC suspended him “indefinitely.” He said what a growing number of Republicans, Democrats, and people in the media think.

It’s a problem for Barack Obama.

But another problem is shaping up on the floor of the United States Senate. Marco Rubio, who is rapidly becoming one of the most impassioned champions for opposing the debt ceiling increase, said that Barack Obama’s class warfare soliloquy was not the rhetoric of the President of the United States, but of a third world leader.

In fact, you could hear a Hugo Chavez or a Fidel Castro or a Robert Mugabe or a Lula da Silva say the same thing. And to be honest, I think this is a message that will resonate with independent voters, a growing number of whom do see Barack Obama as a jerk who tries to reward his friends, punish his enemies, and have the government pick the winners and losers.

Couple that with the President rejecting an invitation to meet with Republicans on Capitol Hill to discuss the debt, while pounding his chest that Congress stay in Washington while he goes out on the campaign trail and he leaves voters with a real disconnect.

If the economy suddenly improves, Barack Obama will win re-election. But thanks to his failed policies that he intends to perpetuate, the economy will not improve. And come 2012 a ham sandwich would beat Barack Obama. Worse for him, a Republican will beat him.