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Politics : The Trump Presidency -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (2317)	12/15/2016 9:35:30 AM
From: Lane3	1 Recommendation Recommended By one_less Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 357353

You guys can blame the Republicans all you want ... "You guys." Moi? Hmmm. I have to tell you, since I doubt many people have any clue, how very weird it is for someone who is utterly non-partisan to experience the partisanship hereabouts. I have no attraction to either major party. I have no attraction to politicians. Politics is an ugly business. I have always been particular about personal integrity. About the closest I am able to come to compromising mine is to tell a friend that her horrid haircut doesn't look so bad and probably no one will notice, and I'm very uncomfortable doing so. Still, I realize that there's no way that a professional politician can rise to the level of running for president without having gone along to get along more often that I would approve, so I hold my nose and cut them some slack. All of them. Partisanship nowadays is out of hand to the point of being soul-killing, of shorting out people's brains. One's team can do no wrong. The other team, doing the exact same thing, is deemed manifestly beyond the pale, is hated. In the matter of a couple of days I have found myself defending partisan charges against two presidents, one from each party, that they are monsters. Here is my post about Bush, my lifetime least favorite president: Regardless of what one might have thought of his presidency, Bush seemed to be a civilized, decent human being. Message 30882788 Now, it's Obama. "Were you listening when Barack Obama essentially flipped off the Republicans by saying, 'We had an election. I won?'" I was listening but I didn't hear that. I can find no evidence that he ever said that. The closest thing I can find is this clip from WaPo: A visibly frustrated President Obama delivered a blunt message to Republicans with whom he had feuded over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling over the past month on Tuesday: Elections matter. I won; you lost. That's a paraphrase -- obviously. Here's what Obama actually said: "You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don't break it. Don't break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That's not being faithful to what this country's about." October 17, 2013 Note the date. Obama had been in office for four years. My recollection was that he was stymied by a partisan congress before he had even settled into the White House for his first term. TIME just published “The Party of No,” an article adapted from my new book, The New New Deal: The Hidden Story of Change in the Obama Era. It reveals some of my reporting on the Republican plot to obstruct President Obama before he even took office, including secret meetings led by House GOP whip Eric Cantor (in December 2008) and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (in early January 2009) in which they laid out their daring (though cynical and political) no-honeymoon strategy of all-out resistance to a popular President-elect during an economic emergency. “If he was for it,” former Ohio Senator George Voinovich explained, “we had to be against it.” The excerpt includes a special bonus nugget of Mitt Romney dissing the Tea Party. That's more or less the way I remember it. The tea party had driven the R's to the point of resisting everything, to government shutdowns, and the like. I'm not suggesting that Obama had no blame in the standoff, only that it wasn't one-sided as you claim, and that he definitely didn't start it. ...but it was HIS responsibility to be a leader. You can't just show up at the White House and expect people to blindly follow. Every president is entitled to at least the appearance of a honeymoon. Obama didn't get one. Regardless, every president tries to lead in his own way. Presidents who face congressional opposition lead differently than presidents with congress on their side. The former try to do what they can within the authority of their office, as best they can stretch it. They typically color a bit outside the lines. They all do it. Obama faced a belligerent congress. One needs to recognize that and moderate judgment accordingly. I am reminded here of a quote (which I have posted before) from P.J. O'Rourke when he endorsed Clinton. "I am endorsing Hillary, and all her lies and all her empty promises," O'Rourke continued. "It's the second-worst thing that can happen to this country, but she's way behind in second place. She's wrong about absolutely everything, but she's wrong within normal parameters." I call your attention to the notion of being wrong within normal parameters. Normal people can differentiate between disagreement and evil or insanity. Partisans somehow lose that ability. George W was within normal parameters. Hillary was within normal parameters. Both Bushes were. Both Clintons were. However much one might have disagreed with them. You have to go all the way back to Nixon before you find a president for whom that judgment might even begin to be arguable. Partisans can also lose the ability to judge "normal parameters." Some people voted for Trump recognizing that he is outside normal parameters but hoping, perhaps, not so far outside as to do any real damage. Some seem to recognize that, as we used to say back when discourse was tempered, "there is something off about him." Others don't see that at all. They think he's great. You, of course, are entitled to your opinion. I would not have challenged your post had it not been addressed to me in a way that suggested we might be on the same wave length. Which is why I asked you, when expressing said opinion, to please leave me out of it.