Greg Sargent reports that the GOP leadership has signaled its intention to go all in on a variation on the idea that President Obama is too busy with too many confusing plans!

Okay, this is interesting. The chief spokesperson for GOP Senate Leader  Mitch McConnell just said in an interview that leading Republicans are going to ratchet up their criticism of the Obama administration for releasing too many big plans on the economy -- with too little sense of how they mesh with or impact each other. [...]

"We can't help but notice the numerous and sundry plans that seem to come out at a rate of one a week without any clear picture of how they interact and whether they interact well or not," Stewart told me. "That's a very real concern among Senate Republicans."

This meme is nothing new from Republicans and the media. In fact, President Obama did an excellent job of batting it down during last week's townhall meetings last week:

Now, there are those who say these plans are too ambitious; that we should be trying to do less, not more. Well, I say our challenges are too large to ignore. The cost of our health care is too high to ignore. Our dependence on oil is too dangerous to ignore. Our education deficit is too wide to ignore. To kick these problems down the road for another four years or eight years would be to continue the same irresponsibility that led us to this point. And I did not run for President to pass on our problems to the next generation - I ran for President to solve them.

So I know some folks in Washington and on Wall Street are saying we should focus on only one problem at a time. And I understand the thinking behind that. It'd be nice if we could pick and choose what problems to face and when to face them. But that's just not the way it works. You don't get to choose between paying your mortgage bills or your medical bills. You don't get to choose between paying your kids' tuition and saving enough for retirement. You need to take on all of these problems. And you need a government that will do the same. That's what leadership is all about.

But as Sargent notes, this new offensive signals a more concerted message effort on the part of Republicans to undermine the president. Good to see Democrats coming to his defense. Earlier today, the DNC pounced:

"I guess when you have no new ideas, anything more than zero must seem overwhelming. But, if the Republican party thinks that attacking new ideas is a winning answer, they're more out of touch than we all thought. Now is a time when we could use all the good ideas we can get -- and we invite the Republican party to offer some new ones rather than playing the same old Washington games. They can start by putting out their own budget proposal."

As did Harry Reid's office:

If Republicans would have done a little planning of their own over the last eight years, perhaps we still wouldn't have 138,000 troops in Iraq. Perhaps with a little planning they wouldn't have stranded countless Americans in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Perhaps a little planning would have helped stave off the collapse of the housing sector. I know it must be hard for them to comprehend, but one day they'll come to realize that competent proactive planning isn't such a bad thing.

Nice.

The president's message has been that not only CAN he walk and chew gum at the same time, but he MUST and in fact you'll recall that last fall, then Senator Obama turned McCain's inability to do two things at once into a campaign issue; the country voted for the multi-tasker. The party of "No" is swiftly becoming the party of "hold on there, America can't handle more than one thing at a time!" Amusing that Republicans, who have had an obsession with the concept of American exceptionalism, suddenly find themselves arguing against American ambition and for the limits to America's excellence.