Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) told radio show hosts that President Obama doesn’t know what he is doing. According to The Hill newspaper, Grassley said:

"I think that he is a good person, and good-intentioned," Grassley, the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee, said in a radio interview. "But I believe he didn’t serve in government long enough to understand really how things work."

"Remember, he was in the Senate four years, but effectively only two years because he spent two years where he was hardly ever here at all — he was campaigning for president," Grassley said. "He really does not have an understanding of how Congress operates."

"He’s very idealistic, and so when you’re idealistic you want to put all those things into practice," Grassley added. "So I think he’s maybe trying to do too much at one time."

That Senator Grassley, a person with notoriously stupid Twitter updates, would insult the President’s intelligence is pretty ironic. Here the last Twitter Grassley posted:

"Saw Glenn Beck on Fox last and got his pt abt govt and the missing airplane engine but I need explanation photograghic dishonestyWhere engin"

That’s a US Senator’s spelling and grammar, not mine. But the truth is that Grassley would rather sit around and type up hilariously bad Twitter updates into his BlackBerry than actually do the work the people of Iowa send him to Washington to do.

Grassley is up for re-election next year. He knows that even on old lion of the Senate can lose in the state which launched Barack Obama’s flight to the White House. So Grassley has declared on Twitter that he supports health care reform:

"Obama speech on healthCareReform Absolutely nothing new Waste of time saying we are going to get that done Baucus and I know that But doRITE"

Grassley and Wyoming Senator Mike Enzi have sought to appear supportive of health care reform by merely staying at the table. Every time they get close to a deal between members of the Secretive Six, Grassley and Enzi back out, claiming they are being rushed. Enzi even went as far as to demand that the President and the Speaker of the House completely respect the back room deals of the Secretive Six, and agree not to alter any deal that may emerge from Secretive Six’s committee.

Earlier this week, Max Baucus agreed to impose a deadline of September 15th for the Secretive Six’s talks. Baucus said that if no deal is reached by September 15th, he will move forward–with or without the votes of Grassley and Enzi. For their part, Grassley and Enzi insist that there is no deadline, and that health care talks can go on indefinitely.

Of course, what this is really about is stopping health care reform. Grassley and Enzi want to stop the Senate from doing the people’s business–they want to stop the Senate from improving the health care system. Grassley and Enzi would prefer to leave a system that, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, forces half of all Americans to cut back on medical care due to costs. That much became apparent when Grassley let his guard down on Twitter:

"PTL BluDogs Keep barkin Pelosie bill is Govt takeovr of healthCare Breaks Obama promise"keep what u hv" Puts Wash Burocrats in chrg MUSTSTOP"

The people of Iowa have an old and lazy Senator who is Twittering away a chance to help half of all Americans afford doctor’s visits, prescription medications, and cancer screenings. I hope that the people of Iowa will put Senator Grassley out to pasture by defeating him in the 2010 election. And I hope that progressives will counter the right-wing rent-a-mobs that Grassley cheers on by attending town hall meetings.