During the course of your 1st year in office, Mr. President, you have been subject to a series of attacks that boggle the imagination. First, there were the "birthers" who denied the legitimacy of your taking office. At various times, Richard Shelby, Roy Blunt, Jean Schmidt, and Sarah Palin have all joined those who raised questions about your citizenship.
As the health care debate heated up this past summer, the death panel scam emerged as a major GOP talking point. The ubiquitous Ms. Palin, of course, quickly joined in spreading this calumny, too. More disturbingly, however, Sen. Grassley, one of the GOP members of the "Gang of 6" that was allegedly working towards a HCR compromise at the time, implied to an IA audience that the Dems were proposing to snuff out grandma.
Legislatively, things went little better for your WH. Only 3 GOP senators (and no GOP MOC's) voted for a watered down Stimulus Plan. 1 of those 3 GOP senators switched parties shortly thereafter b/c he knew that he faced almost certain defeat in the 2010 GOP PA-Sen primary.
In July, Sen. DeMint vowed to make HCR your political Waterloo. In the ensuing month, the teabaggers disrupted a series of HCR town meetings sponsored by Dem MOC's in a wide variety of states. Despite this conscious strategy of obstructionism, attempts were still made to forge "bipartisanship" on HCR. Ultimately, of course, only 1 GOP MOC and no GOP senators voted for the bills that passed either chamber. In fact, all 40 GOP senators filibustered the final bill.
There was one issue in the HC debate that did attain bipartisan support, the Dorgan drug reimporation amendment. That bill earned a 51-48 Senate majority, but it, obviously, fell short of the super majority required for inclusion in the final bill. 22 GOP senators, including DeMint, joined that majority. Your WH, however, strayed from the bipartisan faith in this particular instance.
Given this set of circumstances and given the tenor of the just-completed MA-Sen race (most notably the "curling iron up her butt" comment), one might expect a presidential recognition of an unfortunate reality. Instead, in yesterday's George Stephanopoulos interview, the following exchange took place:
STEPHANOPOULOS: How do you make that happen?
OBAMA: Well, you know, it is my responsibility to try to reset the tone. And I'm going to have a State of the Union speech and one of my goals, I think, I spoke about this on King's birthday, the fact that I felt disappointed that we had lost some of that sense of common cause that existed a year ago and that I have not been able to change the tone here in Washington. I am going to keep on trying though. And the reason I'm going to keep on trying is, because if we can't do that, if all that's taken place back and forth between the parties is vitriol and accusations, then what's going to end up happening is that we're going to just keep on in a direction in which families are losing ground and they become further and further disenchanted with the possibilities of politics and government can solve any problems whatsoever.
W/ all due respect, Mr. President, exactly "what sense of common cause" existed 1 year ago? I must have missed it. Two days after you took office, the Lilly Ledbetter pay act passed the Senate by a de facto party line vote. I guess that this "sense of common cause" disappeared w/i 48 hours after you took your oath of office.
Today, you reacted to the utterly indefensible 5-4 SCOTUS decision giving corporations unlimited spending rights as follows:
"With its ruling today, the Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics," said President Obama in a statement. "It is a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans... That's why I am instructing my Administration to get to work immediately with Congress on this issue. We are going to talk with bipartisan Congressional leaders to develop a forceful response to this decision."
Exactly which "bipartisan Congressional leaders" do you plan on speaking to about this issue? The Senate Minority Leader reacted to the decision as follows:
"With today's monumental decision, the Supreme Court took an important step in the direction of restoring the First Amendment rights of these groups by ruling that the Constitution protects their right to express themselves about political candidates and issues up until Election Day." — Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
The House Minority leader reacted similarly:
"I think the Supreme Court decisions today are a big win for the First Amendment and a step in the right direction." — House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio.
Please acknowledge some obvious facts here, Mr. President. Please acknowledge the obvious fact that the GOP was out to undermine your Administration from the start, that it continues to undermine it now, and that it will keep undermining it until the day that you leave office. Bipartisanship in the current enviroment is the political equivalent of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy, and it's long past time to outgrow that attachment. You have majorities in both houses that no POTUS of either party has had in over 30 years, so please start using them!