If the President wants to fully implement his agenda and avoid becoming a one-term president, he has to roll up his sleeves and ditch this idea of bipartisanship. Hell, kick it in the nuts, I say.
Don’t get me wrong: in principle, I believe in bipartisanship. But when you’ve cultivated an atmosphere of fear, mistrust and miscommunication among your base and constituents, as the GOP has done, options have dwindled in earnest. The president brought up this particular point at the Republican congressional retreat last Friday when he accused them of framing health care reform as a sort of "Bolshevik plot" and limiting their ability to come to the negotiating table in good faith.
And when a new poll of Republican voters shows that 63% think he’s a socialist; 53% actually believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than he is; 39% of them think he should be impeached (for what?); 36% don’t believe he was born in the United States; 31% think he’s a racist; 24% believe Obama wants "the terrorists to win" (huh?); and 21% are pretty sure ACORN stole the 2008 election; well…it’s time to man up and do your own thing. Now, before it's too late. (He definitely took steps in that direction this past week.) And don’t even get me started on Joe Lieberman or the so-called Blue Dogs.
From the Huffington Post:
How does a Republican lawmaker explain to his or her die-hard base that it is important to work on legislation with a racist, socialist president who is illegally holding office only because of the help of ACORN?
"This is why it's becoming impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country," said Markos Moulitsas, founder and publisher of Daily Kos. "They are a party beholden to conspiracy theorists who don't even believe Obama was born in the United States, and already want to impeach him despite a glaring lack of scandal or wrongdoing. They think Obama is racist against white people and the second coming of Lenin. And if any of them stray and decide to do the right thing and try to work in a bipartisan fashion, they suffer primaries and attacks. Given what their base demands—and this poll illustrates them perfectly—it's no wonder the GOP is the party of no."
