"Obama ditches his illusions about Republicans"

[applegrove]

Obama ditches his illusions about Republicans

By E.J. Dionne Jr. at the Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-obama-ditches-his-illusions-about-republicans-in-state-of-the-union/2015/01/21/f874158e-a199-11e4-903f-9f2faf7cd9fe_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

"SNIP................


“This is good news, people.”

With those five words, President Obama made clear that he thinks it’s far more important to win a long-term argument with his partisan and ideological opponents than to pretend that they are eager to seize opportunities to work with him. He decided to deal with the Republican Party he has, not the Republican Party he wishes he had.


E.J. Dionne writes about politics in a twice-weekly column and on the PostPartisan blog. He is also a senior fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, a government professor at Georgetown University and a frequent commentator on politics for National Public Radio, ABC’s “This Week” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” View Archive
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Those ad-libbed words followed what ranks as one of the more polemical passages ever offered in a State of the Union address. “At every step, we were told our goals were misguided or too ambitious,” he declared, “that we would crush jobs and explode deficits. Instead, we’ve seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade, our deficits cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled, and health-care inflation at its lowest rate in 50 years.”

Good news, indeed, and in telling the Republicans that all their predictions turned out to be wrong, he reminded his fellow citizens which side, which policies and which president had brought the country back.

His analysis of the nature of his political opposition, in turn, dictated the approach he took in the rest of the speech. There was no point in hedging on his wishes, constraining his hopes or compromising in advance. Earlier in his administration, he might have begun the negotiations by offering his interlocutors their asking price upfront and then moving backward from there. No more.




.................SNIP"

[msongs]

1. took him 6 years to learn what the whole planet knew in 2008 nt

[roguevalley]

2. I agree. It mystifies me to this day.

[ND-Dem]

3. took him long enough. i never realized he was so naive. you'd think a term in congress would

knock that right out of you, but apparently not.

[Scuba]

4. Kabuki theater.

[Tatiana]

5. I think he really wanted to be like Reagan... admired by those on both sides of the aisle.

Unfortunately, he (and most especially, HIS ADVISERS) failed to understand the depth of the Republicans' racism. I honestly think he had never encountered racism at that level before in his life. He made some poor choices believing the Republicans would act in good faith. Of course we knew they wouldn't. But, for someone in his shoes, I can understand why he made the overtures to try to work with the Republicans.

At some point, though, he should have realized he was dealing with racist bullies and taken the gloves off. Hindsight is 20/20, but I think today's Obama would have accomplished some truly transformational things back in 2009-10.

[Autumn]

6. Bullshit. Obama never had any illusions about Republicans. He's a brilliant guy.

People who think he had illusions are, well.. delusional or worse.

[lame54]

8. then explain his endless talk of bipartisanship

[Autumn]

9. That's what he wanted.

[pacalo]

7. "This is good news, people."

This was my personal favorite ad lib of the speech because I took it that he was referring to the stone-cold reception of the Republicans in the chamber at this good news:

At every step, we were told our goals were misguided or too ambitious; that we would crush jobs and explode deficits. Instead, we’ve seen the fastest economic growth in over a decade, our deficits cut by two-thirds, a stock market that has doubled, and health care inflation at its lowest rate in fifty years.