If he [Obama] had started out stronger the evolving dynamic would have been different
The Republican Senators would have come over because they would be under public pressure not to screw the country. Instead he handed them the dynamic and they got to push those 3-4 Republicans to go with their party instead of the people. It's known as whipping the vote. He let the whip fall out of his hands and into their theirs.
Someone here linked to these Harry Truman quotes. Obama must not have ever read them..because he violated each precept.
"Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don't ever apologize for anything."
"I don't like bipartisan. Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know that he's going to vote against me."
He let them carry the battle to him. He let them put him on the defensive. And he apologized.
And he didn't know that this was the Republican definition of bipartisan....voting against you.
I believe that her point is inarguable, self-evident. One can spin whatever sorts of theories one wants about Obama's grand strategy--and I've got a post in the works on that. But one thing should be blindingly clear: it's just been refuted, "big time" as war criminal Dick Cheney would say. If one wants to argue that Obama's bipartisan strategic vision is not to blame, then all the blame has to go to how it was executed--and it surely could have been better done. But if it had been better executed, wouldn't that have only postponed the inevitable??
STATE BLOGS
