Roll Call reports that Obama has now “given up” on Republicans as partners for helping him get some “governing done” in Washington DC. Of course, the Capitol Hill newspaper fails to show when it was that Obama ever consider the GOP to be his governing partner in the first place.
Roll Call writer Steven T. Dennis claims that, “Obama already seems resigned to the reality” that he won’t be able to successfully initiate his massive re-tooling of America to reflect his left-wing agenda because the GOP isn’t interested in “bipartisan action.”
Dennis reports Obama’s recent lamentation that he can’t get anything done without California’s Democrat Representative Nancy Pelosi back in the House Speaker’s chair and notes his complaining that Boehner and the Republicans won’t just bend to his will so he can do what he wants to do.
But, Dennis reports from Obama’s side of the argument, refusing to point out that President Obama has never considered the Republicans and the millions of voters they represent as important partners in running Washington DC in the first place.
The fact is, President Obama has spent far, far more time ignoring the Republicans, excluding them from the discussion, and shutting them out for months–even years–at a time then he ever has in conferring with them. He has a history of excluding Republicans an has been on a one-man campaign flying about the country pushing his far left agenda all the while feeling it unnecessary to deal with the GOP.
The following are just few examples of reports from the last five years that noted that the President had turned his back on Republicans.
- Just prior to last month’s meeting with House members this year, Obama hadn’t met with House Republicans for nearly three years.
- On the Laura Ingraham show in July of 2012, Paul Ryan said that “Obama hasn’t met with the Budget Chair in over a year.”
- In 2011, even Roll Call itself called Obama’s relationship with the GOP too “aloof.”
- In 2009, Obama cut Republicans out of the discussion during the healthcare fight.
The President isn’t the only one refusing to treat Republicans as legislative partners, either. In 2009 Nancy Pelosi herself completely shut the GOP out when as speaker she ruthlessly controlled the House of Representatives and rewrote House rules to exclude Republicans from having any voice at all in such things as Obamacare.
More recently one of Obama’s own spokesmen said during the President’s recent so-called “charm offensive” that it was a “big waste of time” to bother talking to Republicans.
So, for Roll Call and Steven T. Dennis to act as if Obama has suddenly thrown up his hands in despair over working with Republicans, this is an act of willfully ignoring the last five years of Obama’s and his party’s history.