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Did W Ever Accuse Senate Democrats of Obstructing Progress?

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Save for a brief few months in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, Democratic Senate leaders in succession, first Tom Daschle (until voters in his state tossed him out), then Harry Reid, used the parliamentary tactics at their disposal to block numerous initiatives from then then-Republican president, including reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that might have forestalled — or at least mitigated — the financial crisis of 2008.

At no point in his Administration did George W. Bush face a Senate where his party had enough votes to block a Democratic filibuster nor were there enough Republicans to block one by picking up just one or two Democratic votes.  Now, his successor whose party has a much stronger Senate caucus (in term of numbers) than he ever did gets all upset when Republican Senators do almost exactly the same thing his caucus did when he was in the Senate:

President Barack Obama is taking aim at Senate Republicans, accusing them of playing politics with measures that would extend benefits to the unemployed and increase lending to small businesses.

Striking a deeply partisan tone in his weekly Saturday radio and online address, Obama said the GOP leadership has chosen to “filibuster our recovery and obstruct our progress” by blocking votes on agenda items the president says would breath life into the economic recovery.

Note, this isn’t a campaign speech, but an official presidential address.

And there’s something else to note.  Back in the dark days of the Bush Administration, such MSM outlets as the New York Times defended Democratic use of the filibuster.  It was clear back then that first Daschle, then Reid, were trying to obstruct the president’s agenda.  Indeed, they all but said as much.  And now Republicans are merely trying to block an item on the president’s wish list because of concerns about the lack of funds to pay for it.  Meanwhile, Democrats reject Republican attempts to use already allocated “stimulus” funds to pay for these benefits.

Wonder if the media will take the president to task for playing the politics of division.

Why must this new kind of politician always attack the opposition in bitter partisan terms??

Comments

  1. President Obama just cannot help himself; his own partisan poison toward the Republicans is not going down so well, although he turns up the dosage to have the attempted same effect before his superficial plastic image shattered into a thousand little pieces. Obama is desperate since he has long lost the narrative, despite the lapdog MSM carrying his water. Obama continues his precarious free fall.

    Has anyone else noticed, despite super-majorities in the House of Representatives & the Senate, Obama still blames the Republicans for his problems? The truth is the Democrats are in disarray & divided. The Community Organizer-in-Chief’s tactics have backfired. I have never known so many people wanting so much legislation repealed as the Obama-tainted Democrats run for cover, too late to comprehend, they have been marked for political death.

    Obama is agitating the wrong crowd in the wrong way given the Republicans are energized while the Democrats are sullen, shrunken shadows in the Leftist-Marxist corner in an curiously empty room.

    Obama is desperate from so many political angles. Yet he set himself up for his his own fall from grace. No one believes Obama anymore.

  2. I’ve been amused by the appropriateness of the name that Neoneocon came up with for Obama a few months back: Blame Duck. When he’s not reading teleprompter speeches written by a 20-something, Obama can be counted on to blame someone else for his problems.

  3. Regarding your titular question, I don’t remember if President Bush ever accused Democrats of obstruction, but I remember somebody sure did. Might have been congressional Republicans, might have been conservative pundits, might have been all three.

    But Democrats WERE obstructing, as Republicans are trying to do now. Good for them!

    The important point is that Democrats were obstructing an agenda that a majority of Americans supported, while Republicans are trying to obstruct a deeply unpopular Democrat agenda.

    The latest poll from Rasmussen shows an overwhelming majority of Americans believe the Obama/Democrat government is a rogue government that does NOT have the consent of the governed.

  4. Yea, I’m with AE. I went to look for it but I couldn’t find W actually calling them obstructionists. I did find the term used with the Democrats often when it came to the Social Security Reform after 2004 election, but mostly in articles and but not by him.

  6. President Barack Obama is taking aim at Senate Republicans, accusing them of playing politics with measures that would extend benefits to the unemployed

    Let’s be clear on something: Further extending unemployment would be the EXACTLY WRONG thing to do for the economy. Kudos to Senate Republicans, if they are “obstructing”!

    Why wrong? The unemployed already have 99 weeks of benefits. The money is already either coming from the taxpayer or being printed from thin air (which effectively loots prudent people who saved), which worsens the economic crisis and thereby creates unemployment.

    Paying people for being unemployed is a bad idea to begin with; it is an economic fact that you get more of what you subsidize – in this case unemployment. For example, in a 2-earner family, the unemployed spouse keeps “looking” and enjoying his or her unemployment – doing more at home – while the government keeps extending benefits. But I digress.

  8. Here are my thoughts, firmly implanted by Barry Goldwater:

    Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. Their mistaken course stems from false notions of equality, ladies and gentlemen. Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.

    I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is “needed” before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents’ “interests,” I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.

    I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!

  9. Regular people can say things POLS can or won’t say. Anyone who has been on unemployment for 99 straight weeks, is in all likely hood a
    liberal Democrat socialist. These folks aren’t voting Republican in the fall or 2012. The people who have been pulling the wagon, probably will appreciate having a limit on unproductive peoples unemployment.

  10. Doing an open search on google of Bush accuses democrats brought up 80 million hits.

    narrowing it down though, with the same statement in quotes, brought up 16,400 hits. Reading through just a few of the pages all led to news reports during Bush’s presidency in which he accused congressional democrats of xxx.

    So – In answer to the title of this post – the answer is yes.