Monday, January 28, 2013

Our President Is Displeased

From New Republic and Franklin Foer comes a Q&A with the newly re-elected President, which just shows a man who is ready and willing to be embittered and angry. So bitter, in fact that left-leaning New Republic felt compelled to label it "Barack Obama is Not Pleased".

And of course, how can he be? I mean, the man just faced a rousing electoral triumph, but he still is faced with this:
The House Republican majority is made up mostly of members who are in sharply gerrymandered districts that are very safely Republican and may not feel compelled to pay attention to broad-based public opinion, because what they're really concerned about is the opinions of their specific Republican constituencies. There are going to be a whole bunch of initiatives where I can get more than fifty percent support of the country, but I can't get enough votes out of the House of Representatives to actually get something passed. 
Obama recognzies just how tough it is to be a Republican:
I think John Boehner genuinely wanted to get a deal done, but it was hard to do in part because his caucus is more conservative probably than most Republican leaders are, and partly because he is vulnerable to attack for compromising Republican principles and working with Obama.
He just doesn't want to admit how tough it is to be a Democrat:
The same dynamic happens on the Democratic side. I think the difference is just that the more left-leaning media outlets recognize that compromise is not a dirty word. And I think at least leaders like myself—and I include Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in this—are willing to buck the more absolutist-wing elements in our party to try to get stuff done.  
 (Mr. President -- if you honestly believe that...Well, I do you the credit of believing that you know you are lying) But, lest anyone think that Obama believes that Democrats really  are part of the problem... don't worry -- he doesn't:
There's not a—there's no equivalence there. In fact, that's one of the biggest problems we've got in how folks report about Washington right now, because I think journalists rightly value the appearance of impartiality and objectivity. And so the default position for reporting is to say, "A plague on both their houses." On almost every issue, it's, "Well, Democrats and Republicans can't agree"—as opposed to looking at why is it that they can't agree. Who exactly is preventing us from agreeing?
Poor Obama. He was going to change the tone in Washington. And he did. It's now worse. Maybe he'll work off the tension by shooting some more skeet.

 

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