A welcome change in tone started to emerge from the President last week as he realized that the Republicans were still playing the same old games and pushing the same old failed policies. The American people dumped the GOP last November. And, Obama had to dump that painful rhetoric about bipartisanship, which only works if both sides are willing. Reuters provided an analysis:
President Barack Obama showed he is willing to cast aside talk of bipartisanship and flex Democratic muscle to push opposition Republicans out of the way in the battle over a U.S. economic stimulus.You can't be nice to Republicans, at least to the right wing nut jobs that run that party now. Nice doesn't work with them. They must be crushed. Flex more muscle.
Obama began his presidency declaring a desire to work with both sides of the divided aisle. Two weeks later, he found himself caught in the middle of a congressional debate over the size and direction of a behemoth stimulus package.
To the chagrin of some of his own Democrats, Obama welcomed a Republican push to make changes in a $819 billion package that emerged from the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives without a single Republican vote.
Senate Republicans had some good ideas, he told NBC last Sunday, "and I want to make sure those ideas are incorporated."
But by Thursday, the legislation began to get bogged down in partisan battles and polls showed American support for it dropping in the face of Republican charges the plan was stuffed with wasteful Democratic spending items.
Obama abruptly changed his tune, reverting to some of the rhetoric he used on the campaign trail to win the White House.
Americans "did not vote for the false theories of the past, and they didn't vote for phony arguments and petty politics. They didn't vote for the status quo -- they sent us here to bring change," he told House Democrats on Thursday at a retreat in Williamsburg, Virginia.
Here's a clip from that speech to the House Democrats in Williamsburg last week. More of the Obama, please:
