A couple of weeks after the 2008 election, the Weekly Standard ran an interesting piece, listing ideas then-President Elect Obama could pursue if he were serious about governing in a unifying, post-partisan way. The writer, Peter Berkowitz, was skeptical, but if Obama were sincere about leading in an even handed way, here were seven steps he could take.
Three and a half years later, Obama embraced nearly all of the Weekly Standard's recommendations. Indeed, the Democratic president went even further, putting Republicans in high-ranking administration positions; expressing a willingness to compromise; and pursuing an agenda that was moderate and mainstream, embracing ideas that enjoyed bipartisan backing.
I thought of this reading Charles Krauthammer's new column, complaining about how "divisive" Obama is. "The entire Obama campaign," the columnist argues, "is a slice-and-dice operation."
It makes a mockery of Obama's pose as the great transcender, uniter, healer of divisions. This is the man who sprang from nowhere with that thrilling 2004 convention speech declaring that there is "not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America."
That was then. Today, we are just sects with quarrels -- to be exploited for political advantage.
Yes, that rascally Obama said he would reach across the aisle, work in good faith, and bring people with different ideologies together in a spirit of shared values and common purpose, but now he's, as Krauthammer's column put it, the "Divider in chief."
I wonder if Krauthammer has considered what it's like to try to be a unifying force during a time of multiple crises when the opposition party's only goal is to obstruct and destroy.
Why did Obama's efforts to bring people together fall short? Let me give you a hint in the form of a chart:
VoteView
Today's Republican Party is the most conservative it's been in a century. Making matters considerably worse, GOP lawmakers decided on Jan. 20, 2009, that they would not work with this president.
Robert Draper has a new book coming out, which shines a light on a private meeting "top Republican lawmakers and strategists" held, literally the same day as Obama's inauguration.
According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). [...]
[T]he book says they plotted out ways to not just win back political power, but to also put the brakes on Obama's legislative platform. "If you act like you're the minority, you're going to stay in the minority," Draper quotes McCarthy as saying. "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign."
Together, they sketched out a plan over the course of four hours: attack Tim Geithner, show "unyielding opposition" to every economic proposal, launch early attack ads targeting vulnerable Democrats. The GOP leaders left their meeting "almost giddily."
As Jamelle Bouie explained, "In other words, there was nothing President Obama could have done to build common ground with Republicans. From the beginning, the plan was to relentlessly obstruct Obama, regardless of whether that was good for the country The GOP's high-minded rhetoric of compromise and bipartisanship was bunk."
In Krauthammer's mind, Obama's a "divider." But for anyone inclined to be fair and intellectually honest, who's driving the divisions?
Tom Mann and Norm Ornstein have a perspective Krauthammer may want to consider: "The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country's challenges."
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You have to hand it to the GOP. They have written an interesting narrative about Obama's presidency. They say he's a do-nothing, empty suit who is actively destroying America. Those two cannot be together.
There is nothing Obama can do to get the GOP to work with him. The tea party has labeled people in congress who vote with the GOP 98% of the time RINOs.
You said it all, Jenny. Obama's biggest failing has been buying into the BS from vampires like Kraut.
Charles Ninnyhammer is not about to consider anything that would make the republicans look bad. Facts are not something he does. Reality isn't in his mindset. All he does is try to find someway that things are not going well and then blame the Democrats. If he has to hogtie reality and bend it into a pretzel, then that's what he has to do and he will do it to the best of his ability, no qualms attached.
Apparently Krauthammer doesn't read his own drivel either, how hard could it have been to do comparative analysis using his own previous column. Too hard, because he'd have to admit something positive about the president, thus committing a cardinal GOP sin. It appears to me that the conservative commandment of Thou Shalt Not Speak Well of This President resides foremost in the God's Party fanatical doctrine, resoundingly trumping any of those lesser commandments a mere Moses or Jesus taught.
I think it's simpler than that. Krauthammer is simply playing the old game of turning your opponent's positives into negatives. The Obama campaign runs an add touting an accomplishment of his and it becomes "spiking the football" and "gloating", so unseemly. Appear on a show that appeals to young voters to spread the word about a young person's issue that is right up your alley because you've already pushed for it? Unseemly, un-presidential. I'm surprised they held off on immature.
And the rest of the media reports on this like a bunch of school children on a playground yelling "Fight! Fight! Fight!" which only encourages more conflict.
How must antacid must one drink to be able to read a Krauthammer column? Every time I run into one in a newspaper, I turn like a Roomba and head another direction.
they decided on January 20, 2009 to commit ECONOMIC TREASON AGAINST THIS COUNTRY.
never forget that.
Krauthammer another failed cheerleading neo-con! The fact that anyone still allows this man to write truly shows how broken the system is. The GOP have been obstructing this President in E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G that he's done. And the sad part is is mainly because he is a black man. That failure and war-criminal GWB and his mis-administration left such a stench in 2008 that the GOP knew that they wouldn't get the White House, but their obstructionism isn't just against this President - it is against WE the PEOPLE!
I was always told that actions speak louder than words and these people have lied, about everything! Where were those "jobs" that the GOP promised to deliver if they got the Congress back? Nary a "jobs bill" has been produced! In fact when they aren't trying to legislate disenfranchising women/the poor/gay people/immigrants/the elderly/African-Americans rights away - they aren't even in session!
VOTE THEM OUT IN NOVEMBER!!!
Let's see...It says open can,empty contents into pot,add one can of water and bring to a boil. Cool.
NO,no , no! You opened it wrong. No sir you pout it slower. Sheesh why add a can of water ? Why boil it and then wait for it to cool when you can just heat it a little bit?
Sorry to trivialize it this way. Facts are facts it is true but it seems in truth what is fact depends on you? Fanatics and zealots undermine democracy and to simply state that clearer heads must prevail is to suggest that democracy must end. Trap set they sit and wait.
According to Draper, the guest list that night (which was just over 15 people in total) included Republican Reps. Eric Cantor (Va.), Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), Paul Ryan (Wis.), Pete Sessions (Texas), Jeb Hensarling (Texas), Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) and Dan Lungren (Calif.), along with Republican Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.), Jon Kyl (Ariz.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Ensign (Nev.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.). [...]
Now if that isn't a coalition of the stupid, I don't know what is.
Their brains all added together don't come close to the single one of BHO.
I said this back during Dubya's terms, real conservatives don't start wars and real conservatives don't put the country in debt. They may well call themselves conservative, but they are far from it and have been for a very long time.
And like rikyrah said, when they plotted to undermine our government, they committed treason.
My ultimate fear is that too many people in this country will not look at the facts and start believing the nonsense that the GOP is spewing and we end up with Mitt Romney in the white house and the Republicans back for another 4 years of systematically destroying the American way of life, for their own pocketbooks (and that of their closest friends).
Legitimate fear...2010 comes to mind.
Pathological opposition in the extreme requires no thinking on what position to take, as long as it is opposite the other side. Historically, Democrats or liberals tend to agree more with Republicans or conservatives on specific legislation. Democrats moving toward Republican legislation is indeed compromise, both the art and element of politics in a democracy. True to the pathology, Republicans feel they must differentiate themselves from Democrats in the extreme rather than claim victory when Democrats come to agree with the original Republican position. Republicans thus end-up opposing their own original position, state-sponsored health care being an example. However absurd an argument is made by disassociated pundits and politicians as a fear-filled illusion to all of us hooked-up the The Matrix, we can be confused enough (confusion is when reality meets illusion) to be swayed. Pundits and politicians who have the power to make you believe absurdities have the power to make you commit injustices. As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities (italics credit Voltaire). Our two-party system decides what our choices are and presentation of those choices are decided by election campaigns paid for by contributors to whom the politicians owe their capability of employment and whom, as in any good capitalistic society, expect a positive return amounting to a help-yourself from the public coffure that the actual public is more restricted from than ever through cutting social programs thus opening up more for large corporations and other rich persons.
This pattern repeats itself from one depression to the next. For a period of time we see the light and rebuild (fatten) the middle class over time towards another twenty or thirty year raid on the public.
No, We the People have to take responsibility for our government to the greater degree. We've got what we've got because too many voters are lazy, just want to get their opinions off bias media, and vote party tickets because they've done no legitimate homework on the issues or the candidates records.
US citizens have allowed the slow progression of quite a few of these problems with government today, only the latest is buying into the foolish Both Parties Do It and the ridiculous Everyone's Corrupt Up There. We're running on empty generalizations for some very important things, a huge sign of this incipient laziness.
Americans are spoiled (yes, me too) and too many folks give far more consideration to their cell phone purchases and what car they drive than to the inner workings of their local to federal governments overseeing the quality of their lives. Main stream Americans refuse to see that those in charge of generating profit and making money are not lazy at all. It's action against inaction. It's attention against inattention.
I agree we can be lazy voters and that those in charge can be more industrious. There is a difference in circumstances, though. The typical American is too busy working for a living to spend what little free time they have to get involved in the democratic process and then to no avail. The "profit generators" pay for full time participation by their industry representatives in the democratic process and they expect a return. That's there job.
The conservative meme that Barack Obama is the most "divisive" and "partisan commander in chief we've ever had is one of the most hostile, offensive, and untrue exaggeration the Republicans are peddling in this entire campaign. To put the entirety of the blame on the most "do-nothing" Congress in history and the most toxic political environment in decades is to ignore the role played by Republicans and conservative activists -- they are to blame 100% for the disturbing atmosphere that has crippled this coiuntry. http://www.sunstateactivist.org
Krauthammer is the heart and soul of the right wing's rank and file -- a bitter, resentful, crappy little man.
...a bitter, resentful, crappy little man with a national venue. It seems to be a trend. A conservative trend.
Though Krauthammer's work usually evokes pejorative responses, I'd just like to suggest beyond the wretched and torturous person his work projects, he is part of the actual problem of "division." He has coddled elected officials these past two years who have made no bones about their relentless desire to bring down this president in one term.
Hey Charles, the evidence is before you if you merely look - Mitch McConnell's quoted motive, the moniker Party of No, the 60 vote threshold in the Senate, the embracing of extreme players such as Mr. Ready, the show your papers law, the Issa threat of censor against AG Holder - all examples of the inappropriate and misappropriated efforts to obstruct and divide for political gain!
Oh, and hey Charles, you and your ilk need to fess up that ever since President Obama was for it, you were definitely against it at all costs!
Yeah, Charles, the bastards you choose to hang with are the dividers and haters, not the president who you are all to willing to project your own crap upon! -Kevo
Krauthammer uses the word "divider" and divisive cynically, since he is merely a Bolshevik-style propagandist out to score a few cheap political points. Krauthammer's repulsive manner is what Walter Lippmann had in mind when he said nearly a century ago that debating was "a wretched amusement" and partisanship degrading.
"The trick here is to argue from the opponent's language. never from his insight," says Lippmann. "You take him literally, you pick up his sentances and you show what nonsense they are. You do not try to weigh what you see against what he sees. You contrast what you see with what he says. So, debating becomes a way of confirming your own prejudices. It is never, never in any debate I have suffered through, a search for understanding from the angles of two different insights."
And isn't that what Krauthammer does when he accuses Obama of hypocrisy in not finding greater unity with a party for whom the only possible unity that exists means unconditional surrender and abject capitualtion by those outside their group.
Which brings me to my second point: For the true believing right winger, "divisive" is merely the bookend to the rigid "conformity" to conservative orthodoxy which their worldview demands.
Conservatives are divisive by the very nature of their refusal to compromise as a matter of principle. Yet because conservatives are convinced of their own rightness -- and I believe they are sincere here -- a person need not have to go so far as to provoke controversy in order to be "divisive." All they need do is dissent from the worldview that conservatives accept as the commense sense expression of the one and only possible truth.
This was the plan from the begining, and mostly because the 1% want very badly to rule the other 99%. When we 99% decided on Obama for president, the Republican/Conservatives basically said that Obama was an interloper, undeserving to be leader of this country, and set about punishing the 99% for electing him. They have tried everything but armed insurrection. If they fail this election cycle, perhaps they will become desparate enough to try armed insurrection, use the teaparty gun toters to take control. A second civil war. If you cant have your way, kill them all.
Re: Gov't Austerity & Romney/Giulianni visit to the 9/11 Fire Station---TRMS should send a video of your report on that story to the Firehouse. I strongly feel the Firehouse should have REFUSED to allow them on the property. (You're NOT welcome here!)