At a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event in Maryland, President Obama accused Republicans of putting politics above the good of the nation and hinted that because of that they aren’t patriotic.
Obama attacked Republicans for pushing to investigate his failures in Benghazi, Libya, actions that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including our U.S. ambassador.
The President told Party faithful that all of the criticism that Republicans have for his administration are “not serious,” especially their concerns over Obamacare and Benghazi.
“The debate we’re having right now is about, what, Benghazi? Obamacare? And it becomes this endless loop. It’s not serious. It’s not speaking to the real concerns that people have,” he said.
Yet it was his comments on what he feels the GOP is and what he wanted his opposition to become that were most pointed.
Obama said:
We’ve got one party in Congress right now that has been captured by ideologues whose core premise is “no” – who fundamentally believe that the problem is government; who don’t believe that we as a community, as a country have any serious role to play in giving people a hand up; whose budget reflects an interest in cutting back commitments to the most vulnerable and freeing the most powerful from any constraints; and whose principal focus at any given point in the day is trying to figure out how can they make people sufficiently cynical, sufficiently angry, sufficiently suspicious that they can win the next election.
I hate to be blunt about it, but that’s the play. And, by the way, when I say a party has been captured, it’s because I actually want an effective, serious, patriotic, capable, sober-minded Republican Party. And we’ve had that in the past.
Obama feels that because Republicans aren’t acting on a principled stance and because they don’t believe in his big-government, welfare-state policies, then they are neither “serious” nor “patriotic” Americans. Instead they are placing party politics above the good of the nation.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com.