A couple weeks ago, TomP quoted President Obama:
Mr. Obama said the GOP was fixated on the unemployment rate as Congress enters a midterm-election season, saying Republicans "seem to be almost rooting against recovery," according to two aides briefed on the exchange.
The reality is that the Republicans aren't almost rooting against recovery, they are rooting against recovery. They're rooting against health care reform. They're rooting against anything good coming from this presidency. They're rooting against this president!
The reality is that the Republicans know that for one of them to return to the Oval Office, and for their party to retake one or both houses of Congress, this presidency must be perceived as a failure. The consequences to the country of this presidency actually being a failure are irrelevant to them. They want it to fail. They work for it to fail. They know that any successes by this president undermine their party's chances, so they will do their best to prevent any successes, in any ways they can. The Republicans are a party that impeached a twice-elected president for lying about sex. There is no depth too low, and no sewage too rank, for their pernicious partisan wallowing.
Despite his attempts at bipartisan comity, the Republicans have undermined President Obama in every way they have deemed it possible. They spent half a year pretending to negotiate health care reform, and then, despite his compromising and capitulating in countless ways, they didn't give him a single vote. No matter his intentions, theirs remain singular and monomaniacal. They want his presidency destroyed. They want his agenda destroyed. And as they proved with President Clinton, if they consider it necessary in the pursuit of their aims, they won't hesitate to try to destroy President Obama, personally. That's who they are. If they weren't that despicable, they could not perpetually pursue their despicable agenda.
Republicans aren't interested in bipartisanship. They will not negotiate in good faith. They see any Democratic attempts at bipartisanship as but unilateral surrender. Their base is comprised of theocrats and kleptocrats. The former believe they are doing divine work. That never ends. The latter want to hoard every last bit of material wealth they can steal. They literally want to own the world. That admits no compromise.
We liberal critics of some of the president's policies and strategies want very badly for him to succeed. We understand the necessity of his succeeding, both on policy and political grounds. We want him to strive for ideals because we believe doing so would be best, both on policy and political grounds. We want him to stop reaching out to Republicans because we know their goals are the exact opposite of ours, both on policy and political grounds. They want him to fail. Their careers and livelihoods depend on his failing. There is no strategy they won't pursue, if they think it will increase the odds of his failing. His failure is their singular goal.
So, when the president cautiously suggests that the Republicans are rooting for economic failure, he is only scratching the surface. It's more than that. They are rooting against the president. They are rooting for his political destruction. They are working for it. They are literally praying for it. When we liberals try to awaken him to this fact, it is not because we are trying to hurt him. It is because we are trying to protect him. We are this president's friends. The Republicans are anything but.