Saturday, January 30, 2010

"I'll Talk with Anyone Who Agrees with Me" Might Not Be the Absolutely Best Start on Bipartinship




Something groundbreaking happenrd yesterday. The post-partisan, transparency via CSPAN president got together with the other party in front of the CSPAN cameras. As we are painfully learning there is not a 100% agreement between what President Obama says and what he means. “I am post-partisan and believe in transparency,” actually means, “I will listen to the other party and open up to the public only if absolutely nothing else short of declaring martial law will get me what I want.” When he says, “I will accept responsibility,” what he means is, “I will tell you which Republican to blame.” Fair enough, now that we know we just need to make a 175 degree correction of everything he says and we have a clear clue as to what he will do.
Job creation and deficit reduction were major topics in the president’s discussion with the opposition party. But I felt frustrated that the important item facing our nation was not addressed. Muslim militants continue to launch operations to kill large numbers of Americans. No one has yet told Barack Obama or Janet Napolitano about this ever looming threat. Out national security team is asleep. They will remain asleep if it is up to Obama and J-Nap. We need congress to put some pressure on the White House to get its national security act together. There is little or no chance of that pressure coming from any Democrats in Congress. So the Republicans need to get it together. Our confused president has been allowed to set the agenda so everything is off balance.
In spite of all his big talk about bipartisanship Obama has really never tried it. So he needs help. Maybe someone needs to explain to him that saying you’re open to input followed by ideological attacks on most any input does not always cause you opponent to agree with you immediately. But he is really new at this. Maybe he just needs patience and understanding. A LOT of patience and understanding.

No comments: