Barack “I Won” Obama Regrets Lack of Cooperative Tone in Washington
The Smartest Ever/Sort of a God President on ’60 Minutes’ last night (HT Jennifer Rubin):
On his biggest regret, Obama again confessed to being impotent in Washington: “I’m the first one to confess that — the spirit that I brought to Washington, that I wanted to see instituted, where we weren’t constantly — in – in a political slugfest but were focused more on problem solving that, you know, I haven’t fully accomplished that. Haven’t even come close in some cases. And, you know, if you ask me what’s my biggest disappointment, is that we haven’t changed the tone in Washington as much as I would have liked.”
One reason might be tone-setting statements like:
“I won”
or calling Congress “dysfunctional” to justify policy actions to circumvent Congress:
“I’ve told my administration to keep looking every single day for actions we can take without Congress”
or was it directly insulting SCOTUS justices and inflaming opinion against a recent verdict?
“It was really unusual in my mind to see the president going after the Supreme Court in such a forum,” said author and Law Professor Lucas Powe, the Anne Green Regents Chair in Law, and a Professor of Government at the University of Texas-Austin School of Law. “I’m willing to bet a lot of money there will be no Supreme Court justice at the next State of the Union speech.”
or was it gratuitous, sophomoric insults offered in even ceremonial, non-political contexts?
President Obama on Thursday twisted the knife he‘d stuck in his predecessor’s legacy, reminding former President George W. Bush that he left the economy a mess and al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden alive when he left the White House three years ago.
or was it a last minute change that rendered a deal, not a deal?
Woodward confirms the grand bargain was killed by Obama’s demand for more revenue after he and Boehner had already reached a framework for agreement.
Yeah, it’s a bloody mystery why the tone in Washington is so bad.
