President Obama Talks Bipartisanship, But the Reality Is Different

Check out Mike Brownfield's (from The Heritage Foundation) thoughts and observations on President Obama's meeting with the House GOP in Baltimore. On the surface it would seem that the most useful thing Obama learned was that the house leadership shut out the GOP and the American people. In fact he acted like this was the first time he heard about it and at the end of the meeting we were all left with the feeling that he will at last do something about it. I am not buying it. I think he knew about it all along and, by his silence and lack of intervention, tacitly supported the obstructionist behavior. If he was truly interested in a bipartisan solution he should have insisted on it from the very beginning. If he had we might have had a bipartisan health care reform bill long before now. As Representative Roskam courageously pointed out, Obama worked at and achieved bipartisan solutions on many issues as a senator. He obviously is skilled at working across the aisle. So one has to wonder just what the heck happened to that ability? Either he supported the leadership or he was too naive, too intimidated and too inexperienced to know when to intervene in the process. The bottom line is will he learn from his mistakes or will he continue on the same path because that is where his heart really lies? Time will tell, but my money is on the latter.