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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumThis Isn’t Obama’s Malaise, It’s GOP Intransigence - by Robert Shrum
by Robert Shrum May 3, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
It doesnt matter what the president says or does or whom he drinks withRepublicans are bent on opposing it all. That may be good news for Democrats in 2014 and beyond.
There is a malaise in Washington thats spreading across the country. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, Americans [do] not give Mr. Obama high marks for his handling of issueseven though they largely, at times overwhelmingly, agree with his positions on background checks for gun sales and a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to rein in the federal deficit.
The disconnect is sharp; the frustration, the sense of ennui palpable from Capitol Hill to California. You could fairly call it the Obama malaise, but its not his fault. Its his very existence, his presence in the Oval Office, that fuels a nihilistic opposition, driving obstruction and seeding an increasingly disillusioned national mood.
That mood is distinctly different from the malaise that prompted Jimmy Carter to his self-pitying crisis-of-confidence speech in the summer of 1979. The crisis he identified then was not merely doubt about national leadership, but something deeper, deepera loss of faith on the part of the American people. He seemed to be saying that they had let the country, and him, down. He urged his fellow citizens to stop crying and start sweating, stop talking and start walking, stop cursing and start prayingto stop whining and to say something good about America.
The speech was the profound misdiagnosis of a faltering presidencya misdiagnosis that is decidedly not the problem today. Its government thats failing the people, and not the other way around. Dysfunction in Washingtonand the resulting disillusionment that reaches far beyondare rooted in the animating enmity of a Republican Party that resents Barack Obamas rule and would ruin him at almost any price.
full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/05/03/this-isn-t-obama-s-malaise-it-s-gop-intransigence.html
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This Isn’t Obama’s Malaise, It’s GOP Intransigence - by Robert Shrum (Original Post)
DonViejo
May 2013
OP
patrice
(47,992 posts)1. They couldn't stand a win : win, so now they LOSE. nt
supernova
(39,345 posts)2. In 2016, I would be so happy
to see the repubs confined to maybe one in each house. Hey, I can dream!
DonViejo
(60,536 posts)3. I like your dream! Keep on! It would be pretty inspiring if it came true! nt