Marc Thiessen, Bush's former speechwriter: The roots of Obama's demise

[ProSense]

The roots of Obama's demise

By Marc A. Thiessen

The decline of the Obama presidency can be traced to a meeting at the White House just three days after the inauguration, when the new president gathered congressional leaders of both parties to discuss his proposed economic stimulus. House Republican Whip Eric Cantor gave President Obama a list of modest proposals for the bill. Obama said he would consider the GOP ideas, but told the assembled Republicans that "elections have consequences" and "I won." Backed by the largest congressional majorities in decades, the president was not terribly interested in giving ground to his vanquished adversaries.

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If Republicans had gone along, they would have had to defend the stimulus for the next two years. If they had refused, they would have been in no position to criticize a bill that they had turned down the opportunity to help shape. If the stimulus worked, both sides could have taken credit. And if it failed, reaching out to Republicans would have inoculated the president from the resulting criticism. Had he given them half the booty, they would have shared half the blame.

Would Republicans have accepted hundreds of billions in new government spending in exchange for including pro-growth tax relief and other GOP proposals? The offer would likely have split the party, with a significant number supporting the bill. The grass-roots movement for fiscal discipline had not yet been born, and many of the same Republicans who voted in favor of the "Bridge to Nowhere" would have gladly compromised with the popular new Democratic president. The stimulus would probably have passed with significant bipartisan support, instead of near-unanimous Republican opposition.

But Obama was not interested in compromise. He decided to go it alone. He picked off a few easy GOP votes and rode roughshod over the rest of the Republicans to pass a maximalist bill over their objections. That may have seemed like a good idea at the time. But looking back now, a week from the midterm elections, the wisdom of his approach is hard to discern.

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Are Republicans on drugs?

[Vincardog]

1. If Marc A. Thiessen believes that Obama refused to reach out to the GOP HE is on drugs.

[ProSense]

2. It's the

new media talking point.

[Vincardog]

4. Like most all the RW Talking points it is a patently obvious lie

[AtomicKitten]

3. His postmortem is premature AND horseshit.

It is surreal that Pres Obama is slammed by some on the left for too much bipartisanship and slammed on the right for not enough bipartisanship.

That's a reality gap of monumental proportions.

[Kdillard]

5. They sure are confident when the votes have not been counted as yet.