ARE REPUBLICANS STARTING TO DO LESS OBAMACARE-BAITING AND MORE POOR-BAITING?

Just as night follows day, we know that any move by the Obama administration away from maximum bellicosity will be immediately followed by Dick Cheney rising up out of his crypt and seeking out a friendly interviewer who'll let him troll the White House. What's a bit different this time is the specific nature of the trolling:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday night called the Pentagon budget proposal "absolutely dangerous."

Appearing on Fox News’s "Hannity," he said President Barack Obama "would rather spend the money on food stamps than he would on a strong military or support for our troops."

I haven't done a thorough search, but isn't this new for Cheney? Not the attack on Pentagon cuts -- that was easy to anticipate -- but the Gingrichesque food stamp line.

I wonder whose line it really was. I have no evidence to back this up, but I've long assumed that many conservatives go on Fox News not so much to express opinions as to have expressions of right-wing opinions carefully crafted for them. I'm sure they agree with what they say, but the one-liners can sound quite canned.

And I'm struck by the fact that this came a day after another right-wing attack that was obviously planned and scripted:

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal launched into a repeated assault on President Barack Obama's leadership in the shadow of the West Wing, in defiance of established bipartisan protocol. Speaking after a meeting of the [National Governors Association] at the White House, Jindal, the vice chair of the Republican Governors Association, said Obama is "waving a white flag" by focusing on executive actions with three years left in his term. "The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy," Jindal added.

Food stamps? Minimum wage? Have Republicans concluded that Obamacare-IRS-Benghazi might not be the Democrat-killing trifecta they think it is? Are they changing the message somewhat? If so, they're going back to an old favorite -- that Democratic policies favor those people, the ones who either need public assistance or work jobs that pay no better than minimum wage.

On the surface, Jindal's message seems less toxic -- he accused Obama of creating an economy with too many inadequately remunerative jobs, he appeared to be saying that's a bad thing. But at the reptile-brain level, he knows his intended audience is linking Obama with Those People (even the ones whose own paychecks may be at the minimum-wage level).

Expect more of this in the months to come -- maybe more of this than even Obamacare-bashing.