Editor's prefatorial: understand that beginning with BHO's congressional speech to both houses of congress September 9, 2009, Hussein Obama manifested his "I am calling you out" strategy, never before used by a President of the United States. All previous Presidents have believed they needed votes from the middle and and conservative side of the aisle to win an election. Obama is the first to conclude that he can win elections while ignoring more than half the nation's voting population.
The word is out that Congress will continue to infuriate the general population with work on immigration, Cap and Trade, the silencing of the secret union ballot and attacks on conservative talk radio. Obama intends to take a majority opinion (the fact we are a "center right" nation) and turn those people into second class citizens --- permanently. With the passage of his remaining agenda, before the mid-terms, Obama hopes to be successful in putting America in the Marxist/Socialist column and boxing in the free movement of traditionalist opposition in this Nation. We will expand on this theme in the very near future with linked references and expanded commentary.
It is with great amazement that we read of Obama's "momentum" (in the WSJ article below). All non-partisan polls such as Rasmussen and Gallup have Obama's approval numbers under 50% (Gallup at 46% and Rasmussen at 47% -- both polls taken yesterday). He ultimately gained nothing in polling results because of the passage of the long overdue health care bill and now, after the fact, it turns out that the bill is so poorly written that it might collapse under its own financial burden. The business and corporate communities are silently positioning themselves to fight the Socialist Democrat Party with all the finances they can engender. 77% of Wall Street businessmen believe Obama is anti-business. He has lost 20 points in the moderate community and 9% in the Black community (a truly significant number). He has proven to be an utter disaster for small business and the "anti-Christ" with regard to the Christian faith - lets never forget that he ordered the symbols for "Jesus Christ" covered before giving a speech at the University of Georgtown, last year. Midknight Review regards that as politically unforgivable.
The first "volley" in all this was September the 9th. The facts of this WSJ article give us the final revelation of his strategy. Read the following with the context of our commentary above:
President Barack Obama . . . . . . is taking a more aggressive tack with his Republican adversaries, hoping to energize Democratic voters and possibly muscle in some Republican support in Congress.
On Thursday, the president challenged Republicans who planned to campaign on repealing his health-care bill with, "Go for it." Two days later, he made 15 senior appointments without Senate consent, including a union lawyer whose nomination had been blocked by a filibuster. President Obama is taking a more aggressive tack with his Republican adversaries, hoping to energize Democratic voters and possibly muscle in some Republican support in Congress, Jonathan Weisman reports. At a bill-signing event Tuesday, he is set to laud passage of higher-education legislation that was approved despite Republican objections through a parliamentary maneuver that neutralized the party's filibuster threat.
On Thursday, Mr. Obama will be in Maine, home state of two moderate Republican senators who opposed his health-care plan, to promote the health law. Even his surprise trip to Afghanistan on Sunday mobilized the perks of the presidency to marshal public opinion, as pictures were beamed home of Mr. Obama mobbed by U.S. troops.
A senior Democratic official said the push was a textbook case of taking advantage of political momentum as the campaign season begins. Republicans are "on the defensive," the official said, "and as long as they're not cooperating, we ought to keep them there."
Republicans say Mr. Obama's overtures to them have been for show, whether it was his January meeting with House Republicans in Baltimore or last month's televised, bipartisan health-care summit.
“Instead of trying to work together after the bruising health-care battle, we are going to double down. It only seems to indicate the post-partisanship speak was just that, speak.” —Octavio Lima
The partisanship "may be more visible, and he may be more resolute about it, but as far as most of us are concerned, this is business as usual," said Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander, a member of the Republican leadership. But Mr. Alexander said the recent moves are broader, more public swipes that will hurt the president in the end. He conceded that Republican leaders have tried to maintain unity in opposition. "When you have 40 Republicans, with your back against the wall and the gallows are right in your face, you're going to do your best to be unified," Mr. Alexander said.
The onus, however, is on the president to build relationships with minority leaders, Mr. Alexander said.
"If you're the president or a governor and you don't have a good relationship with the other party, that's your problem to solve," he said.
Mr. Obama campaigned on calling for an end to partisan bickering in Washington, but once in office he launched an ambitious agenda that pursued several long-held Democratic goals.
Meanwhile, Republicans decided at an early stage to aggressively oppose most of Mr. Obama's agenda. Partisan tensions have run high for most of his term.
Recently, Mr. Obama has been swinging particularly hard. He followed up his "go for it" taunt Thursday with the recess appointment of union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, adopting a tactic that presidents of both parties have used in recent decades to skirt the normal confirmation process. Mr. Becker's confirmation had been blocked in the Senate by a filibuster in February.
On Tuesday, Mr. Obama will sign what has been billed as a package of fixes to the health-care bill, approved under rules that required only a simple majority vote to pass in the Senate. That nullified Republicans' power to block it through a filibuster. Democrats attached to the bill a major overhaul of student-lending laws, which eliminated a federal subsidy for private tuition lenders, federalized most student loans and plowed the savings into expanded federal higher education aid. Republicans say the bill will destroy the private student-lending market. Mr. Alexander, the Tennessee Republican, called the student-loan move "really brazen" and "the most underreported, biggest Washington takeover in history."
In classic game theory, confrontation is sometimes necessary when cooperation breaks down to present a credible potential threat and get the two sides to re-engage, said Robert Axelrod, a University of Michigan political scientist and author of the game-theory book, "The Evolution of Cooperation." He isn't related to White House senior adviser David Axelrod.
The Senate doesn't work the way game theorists think, said Antonia Ferrier, an aide to Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah. A body built on personal relationships is likely to spiral into endless tit-for-tat retaliations in the face of Mr. Obama's new turn, she said. . . . .
Write to Jonathan Weisman at jonathan.weisman@wsj.com
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