Just a few days ago in his State Of The Union Address, Barack Obama expressed a major regret during his tenure in office: failing to heal the partisan divide in Washington.
It’s one of the few regrets of my presidency — that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. I have no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I’ll keep trying to be better so long as I hold this office.
The sentiment is nice, but actions speak louder than words. And the only thing Obama has been doing since his speech is attack Republicans.
Speaking at a town-hall-style event in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the president, expanding on a theme he raised in Tuesday’s State of the Union address, said he has “done soul-searching” in office about what he could have done differently to work more effectively with Republicans in Congress.
“I think part of it had to do with when I came in, we had a real emergency and we had to act quickly,” he said of the global recession in 2009 that prompted a government bailout of the auto industry and passage of an $800-billion-plus economic “stimulus” package passed largely by the then-Democratic majorities in the House and Senate.
The problem, Mr. Obama said, was that “people in Washington sometimes weren’t always as focused on getting the job done as they were [on], ‘How’s this going to position us for future elections?’”
This is especially ironic coming from the President who literally told Russia he would have “more flexibility” on missile defense policy after his last election.
Pot? Meet kettle.
