The Backward Party-The president offers an extended critique of Republicans.

[babylonsister]

The Backward Party
The president offers an extended critique of Republicans.
By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, June 2, 2010, at 6:55 PM ET


The Obama Partisanship Meter took another small jump today. When last we checked the needle, President Obama had tweaked Republicans at a Democratic fundraiser, using pointed language to blame them for doing nothing to help improve the economy. It was an escalation in his rhetoric, but it was delivered to a partisan crowd. Today, in a noncampaign event, Obama made his critique more explicit.

The Democratic National Committee will be relying this fall on the president to sell the economic recovery and define the opposition. In Pittsburgh Wednesday, Obama did both.

He didn't simply criticize Republicans. He implicated them in a unified and multifaceted narrative of blame. After explaining how his administration had reacted to the financial crisis, Obama told of how the opposition hadn't been much help. His opponents, he said, were playing politics. "Before I was even inaugurated, the congressional leaders of the other party got together and made a calculation that if I failed, they'd win," he said. The president then turned to the merits of their argument. "To be fair," he started, as if to suggest he might be, "a good deal of the other party's opposition to our agenda has been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about the role of government."

Noncraven Republicans who did not attend the pre-inauguration "Obama Must Fail" meeting might have thought he was going to assign them to a more benevolent category. They were soon disappointed. The president went on to define what Republican beliefs entailed: "It's an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations." The president left out their plan to punish the elderly and infirm just for sport. (For those interested in a more thoughtful speech, and a more generous interpretation of conservatism, read the president's remarks recently at the University of Michigan commencement.)

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http://www.slate.com/id/2255836/

[Clio the Leo]

1. Rubbing my hands with glee....

(haven't seen it yet)

[DJ13]

2. I think most here told him he was wasting his time as soon as he was sworn in

A little slow on the uptake.

[Cosmocat]

7. NO ... HE ... ISN'T ...

He ran on trying to have Washington run by adults ...

His campaign promise to the nation was that he would work with the opposition ...

He HAD to make good on it, and it was the right thing, whether people get it or not ...

In the end, it will be good politics - the right is the right, the left is the left ... What it left to actually move one way or another is the middle ... Enough of the middle will get past the corporate whore media memes and intrinsically know that BO has tried to work with the Rs, and give him credit for it ...

Conversely, all of these pevish, "he is SO partisan" BS they cry about will ring true to their dingbat base, but again, the people in the middle will see the disconnect ... Had he been more flat out partisan from day one, they would know that, and he would lose some of the middle for it ... As is, in the end, people will rally behind him like they did Clinton in the end ...

LOOK - I know the GOP for the deranged snake in the grass areshats they are ... I KNEW they would do what they have done, but BO absolutely did the right thing by TRYING to work with them ...

[applegrove]

3. tax cuts for the wealthy and fewer regulations both result in more money in rich people's pocket.

That is all the GOP is about.

[craigmatic]

4. He hasn't hit them back hard enough for my taste.

If he really wants to hit the repubs where it hurts he'd stop trying to be centrist and go to the left more when it comes to governing.

[rhett o rick]

5. Agree, and stop hiring them ala Geitner, Summers and Bernanke. nm

[zalinda]

6. As soon as it's more than words

I'll start believing him. So far, most of his "campaign promises that he kept", are nothing more than repub light. He's compromised down just about everything so there is no room to really bargain. Damn, when a dem President is to the right of Nixon, there is a problem.

zalinda