It’s not who you think it is. Commentary‘s Peter Wehner reached this conclusion (the title quote) not as did counterparts in the MSM (when they reached a different conclusion) by considering their own reactions to former President George W. Bush and listening to the angry voices of their social peers, but by reading the polling data.
His data comes from poll commissioned by of the most respecte firms in the business, that of the Pew Research Center. Their findings reveal that:
For all of his hopes about bipartisanship, Barack Obama has the most polarized early job approval ratings of any president in the past four decades. The 61-point partisan gap in opinions about Obama’s job performance is the result of a combination of high Democratic ratings for the president — 88% job approval among Democrats — and relatively low approval ratings among Republicans (27%).
Guess blaming Bush and attacking Republicans hasn’t helped endear him to Republicans. Ol’ Rahm might want to reconsider slamming Rush Limbaugh. His buddy James Carville might want to reconsider going after the Governor of Alaska. Wouldn’t be prudent. Not gonna help the President live up to his campaign rhetoric. (As one former President might say.)
Jay Cost believes Obama may pay a “political price for contributing to the rancor . . . not simply because his governing style has been highly partisan to date, but also because he explicitly promised during the campaign that it would not be.“Â Â And the partisan edge to his Administration may cause many of the young voters so enthusiastic about his candidacy to turn away from him.
In his campaign, he tapped into the idealism of their youth, promising to be a different kind of politician, one who transcended politics. Very early in his term, he has turned out to be quite the opposite.
So many faulted his predecessor for his go-it-alone approach. (I grant that George W. Bush did not reach out as much to Congress, even when his own party ran he place, as he should have done. See Jack Goldsmith’s The Terror Presidency: Law and Judgment Inside the Bush Administration for a good discussion of this.) Imperfect though W was, he never bashed his domestic political adversaries rhetorically as his successor has done, especially not when he was abroad.
Americans are starting to take notice. At the rate we’re going, Bush could be rehabilitated in time for his sixty-third birthday. But, America will remain divided.
I don’t know. While everyone bemoans partisanship and wails about how divided we are as a nation, I’ve always felt that that was a healthy thing. I don’t want everyone to agree. Dissent and disagreement make for a thriving democracy. As long as we can keep it civil.
I think we’re capable of that.
So what? Obama and the Democrats don’t need the Republicans anymore that FDR or LBJ did. And if you and Jay Cost think that Generations X and Y and Hispanics are ever going to vote for Republicans in any great numbers, you are really whistling past the graveyard [which is where the GOP currently resides and will be living for quite some time].
Dell, the more people who think, act and talk like you, the more certain I am that Generations Xers Yers and Hispanics will start flipping to the GOP.
C’mon, do you really think people aren’t going to notice the differences between his campaign rhetoric and White House record?
If you don’t need the GOP, how come, as your very rhetoric suggests, we conservatives getting on your nerves?
Thanks for confirming the wisdom of my recent post.
And if you and Jay Cost think that Generations X and Y and Hispanics are ever going to vote for Republicans in any great numbers, you are really whistling past the graveyard
They will when they start paying the taxes for what the Obamamessiah promised them.
Don’t think that all Generation X and Y and Hispanic individuals are worthless lazy welfare-dependent slackers. Only the ones like you who belong to the Obama Party are.
I’m generation X and I sure as hell didnt vote for Obama. My generation voted for George Bush twice, and like the rest of the majority voted for the new Worst President EVER, Barack Obamanation. Believe me, gen X’ers will not make that mistake again.
Barring any comments from Boob, Dell has my vote for most absurd comment of the day.
Dear Dell,
“So what? Obama and the Democrats don’t need the Republicans anymore that FDR or LBJ did.”
Yep, and at the rate Obama, Inc. is screwing the proverbial pooch, the GOP won’t need either President Cover-Boy or the Democrats after it takes back Congress in 2010. 😉
The Democrats always over-reach. They are galvanizing the Republicans who slept-walked through the election. Obama is exposing himself as petty and small- minded. All this will help the Republicans eliminate the stranglehold on Congress.
This is a good thing, a very good thing.
Barring any comments from Boob, Dell has my vote for most absurd comment of the day.
Not so much a comment as a hackneyed, left-wing screeching point. The left will always have commanding majorities among people who don’t have a frakkin’ clue how the real world works — college students, Hollywood celebs, ivory tower academics. But as people become more acquainted with the real world, they tend to trend to the right.
#*8 V the K, you left out one over-arching group: government employees.
dell paxton (#2) is a perfect example of the lard-bottom government minion who has total job security and knows the Democrats care more about his union vote than merit. California has already reached the tipping point where state workers make up such a large per cent of the voters that they control the state budget. Obama aims to ACORN as many people onto the government payroll as possible in order to attain the same ends. This patronage and control is the core of Chicago politics.
Notice, also, that dell paxton in a littleletterperson.
I have to agree with VtK: When people “grow up” they tend to see the nonsense for what it is. As a newly minted voter in my youth, I was registered Dummycrap. Two kids, a couple of government shaftings, and a whole lot of reality later, I fled to the SoS office and re-registered Republican (although I am now proudly a right-leaning independent).
Please forgive my ignorance, but what is a “littleletterperson”?
What happened to post-partisanship, post-racial, HopeyChangey fluffy goodness wrapped in a Messiah President?
Oh yeah, the Real World that the tax-paying adults in this country live in.
We have a number of trolls who are incapable of using proper capitalization, punctuation, or rules of grammar – hence, “little letter people.”
#11 – “Please forgive my ignorance, but what is a “littleletterpersonâ€?”
Well, in my day, they were called libtards. 😉
Regards,
Peter H.
Articles of this nature should be examined with an educated eye on what is in the thoughts of the conservatives. They operate under the cover of President Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”. Taken with that grain of salt, only then can we move ahead to examine the truth in what they say.
Amazing, Thelma claims psychic powers.