With respect to his domestic policies, I found President Obama's press conference today to be a study in genuine frustration and growing bitterness. It was of course another prelim to the stump, so naturally the president would have been hellbent on conveying an atmosphere of GOP hostility -- one thwarting his every excellent intention -- but somewhere, not far from the surface, Obama also radiated a certain authenticity beyond politics: Folks, this place is broken.
In characterizing his approach to governance, the president used phrases such as "common sense"; in characterizing the opposition's, he cited "playing politics" and a "partisan minority" and a middle class being held "hostage," all of which "doesn't make sense." Except it does, if roughly half of Washington is determined to grind this country to a miserable and broken halt.
That was the next spoken step that Obama withheld: stripped of Washington's fragrant euphemisms, the plain fact is that the Republican opposition is ... disloyal. A harsh judgment, but the increasingly conspicuous truth transcends mere ideological differences today. The GOP is not only reveling in the nation's failure, it's doing its damnedest to bring it about. For the GOP it's all politics, all day, every day.
Bill after commonsensical bill has come up for a vote, many of which could advance the economy and many of which were once even co-authored by Republicans. The co-authors, noted Obama, then vote against the bills -- assuming they survive obligatory filibuster attempts -- time after time, instance after instance, disappointing jobs report after disappointing jobs report. Turn the screws one more notch.
And why not? think these fine, upstanding Republicans who bark their Beckian platitudes. What political price have they paid for disloyalty to the American worker? The latter may have his or her limits, but the GOP hasn't yet found them.
All of which, I think, has confounded, frustrated and embittered Mr. Obama. And it's finally showing.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that the president entered office in a state of profound naivete, believing that, sure, the opposition would oppose, as oppositions are meant to do, but for heaven's sake they'd never obstruct progress if potential progress indisputably could be shown. Obama understands that potential progress is often defined along ideological perspectives, and therein lie legitimate disputes and loyal opposition.
What, I think, has genuinely shocked man-of-reason Obama, however, are the unpardonable depths of utterly unprincipled opposition to which the GOP has plunged. Conservative ideology is no longer even at stake. Republicans' singular goal is merely to crush the president, no matter how many precarious Americans they take down in the process.
There's a word for that -- and typical, is it not, that it's being practiced by those who so methodically level it against others.