So says blogger Betsy Newmark who begins - - -
Of course the Democrats want to portray the zero Republican House votes for the huge spending plan as mere partisanship. That's where the White House spokesman cast the blame.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs cast the administration's inability to pick up any Republican votes as a reflection of the politics Obama campaigned against — not a repudiation of a president who worked the Republican side of the aisle even harder than he did his own party's side.
"Of course we're disappointed that it's going to take longer to change the way Washington works than just a little more than a week, but the president feels good about the efforts that he's made to reach out to people to work with them," Gibbs said in an interview quickly set up after the vote.The rest of Betsy’s post is here.
First of all, it is not really "working" with the other side if they don't have input into the bill as it is being written and into the basic approach that the bill took place. Otherwise, it is simply being courteous but also deciding that your side won and so you don't have to do more than lip service and make polite moves to "reach out" to the Republicans without actually changing what you were going to do in the first place.
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My comments:
Not only is President Obama not really “working” with the House Republicans, he's using them as props for his bipartisan pose.
And the Republicans know it.
Will the American people catch on to what Obama’s doing?
If they do, it won’t be because liberal/leftist news organizations such as the NY Times and NPR point it out to them.
For that you have to go to Betsy’s Page and other truth-telling sites.
2 comments:
Somehow, over the recent years, the term "partisan" has been made into a bad word. Our government is a partisan political system where the two major parties sometimes espouse different philosophies of governance. For a time during the Bush years, the GOP forgot its role and joined with the Democrats in spending us into the poorhouse with the thousands of pork projects. Some Republicans are now attempting to correct course and return to the traditional GOP philosophy of limited spending and low taxes. We'll see how long this epiphany lasts.
In closing, let me once again say that partisanship is nothing to be ashamed of. It's what gives a clear-thinking politician the grit to resist the urge to vote for a pork-rich spending bill that our new president is attempting to foist off on the American people. My hope is that the newly discovered GOP courage will take root and thrive, but politicnas have a disappointing track record and I won't be surprised when the GOP falls off the wagon again.
Tarheel Hawkeye
I worry that the GOP, which has suddenly rediscovered its philosophy, will cave to the media demand that they must sign off on the omnibus "stimulus package" for the good of the nation. While there are some portions of the bill, as it is currently constituted, which could be of benefit, the problem with most of it (which the Democrat budget guru Alice Rivlin points out) is that it is an attempt by the Democrats to ram through social changes which they have wanted to enact, without any meaningful discussion under the guise that the measures will in fact stimulate the economy and so therefore to question their efficacy and the underlying reasons for them is somehow "unpatriotic" or just a further indication that the GOP does not "care for the people of this nation".
I hope that Kantor and Boehner stick to their guns and that McConnell has a backbone. Like Tarheel Hawkeye, I will not be surprised if the GOP backslides like an alcoholic at the COmpany Christmas party who thinks that just a little sip won't hurt at all.
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