I don’t think this is true. Reagan and Nixon are still widely disparaged in liberal circles. The two Bushes aren’t getting any love. Ford maybe, but he was such an electoral wimp that he lost to Carter, so there’s not much point in vilifying him. The last Republican most liberals would say “Yea, he was a pretty good guy” was Eisenhower.
Compare to conservatives these days, who even now will admit they didn’t think Clinton was so bad. This is not a case of “both sides do it”, this is pretty clearly a one-sided phenomenon.
The Tea Party Caucus doesn’t have a lot of power unless the establishment Republicans go along with them. Bill Clinton was able to build a lot of ad hoc coalitions depending on the issue, as did Bush and Reagan. I imagine Hillary will be able to as well. Obama has been much less successful in this regard, in part because he’s not offering Republicans anything they want. When he does, they work with him, such as on the Peru and South Korea FTAs, or on the student loan bill that was recently passed. The main problem is that he has no understanding of diplomacy. He can’t get people to follow him domestically, and now we’re seeing that he can’t do it in foreign affairs. Clinton has shown that she can do both much better.
Clinton didn’t spend time launching partisan attacks on Republicans to the same extent Obama does. that’s all he knows how to do is attack, attack, attack, and he does it even when an agreement is close, or in the case of the sequester, after it’s signed. Reagan, Clinton, and Bush knew how to needle their opponents without seeming so ugly.
Oh yeah, he just bends over backwards. Why he doesn’t spend most of his time in partisan attack dog mode at all:
The idiot even made partisan attacks in the wake of the recent massacre. Hillary Clinton is MUCH smarter than that. I dare say his speech that day was the most idiotic day of any Presidency.
“Giving the GOP everything it wants” = “compromise”
“Not giving the GOP everything it wants” = “obstructionism”
Likewise, when half the country hated Bush, it was those who hated him who were dividing the country. When half the country hates Obama, it’s Obama who is dividing the country.
What a load of crap- where do you get this stuff from? Obama’s an effective politician- his Republican opponents in Congress are far, far less popular than he is. Part of this is due to their own missteps, and part of it is due to effective messaging. But what partisan hackery are you accusing him of? Playing audio of Romney’s speeches? Saying that the Republicans are holding the debt ceiling hostage? Mocking them for trying to overturn Obamacare forty-some-odd times? Republican Congressmen and Congresswomen have said far, far worse things about Obama than anything he’s said about them.
The speech after the Navy Yard attacks was not about the attacks, it was about economics. It’s appropriate to highlight the economic differences and try to outmessage your political opponents in an economic speech, and it’s not necessary to postpone normal business in Washington everytime there is a shooting… if so, than we’d have to postpone normal business so often we’d be years behind schedule. It’s the stupid pundits jobs to talk about “tone” and crap like that, so I don’t blame them for doing their shallow little jobs, but it’s just ridiculous to criticize the President for talking about his opponents’ policies- especially when on the same day he was being attacked relentlessly by the other side.
He should, but there are ways to go about it that are more Presidential. Perhaps he(and the rest of you) should watch President Clinton’s speeches.
Sure, there are times to go bareknuckle, but that’s all he does. And what makes him unique is that he does it even AFTER an agreement is signed. He attacks the Republicans for the agreement they all agreed to! Clinton was at least smart enough to take credit for compromises. Obama’s put himself in a position where he can’t credibly take credit for the declining deficit, because he’s attacked the very measures he agreed to to reduce it and continues to do so.
Hillary Clinton plays Presidential politics. Obama is still at the Senate level.
Poor Republicans. They are so picked on by that big bad Obama, and all they want is to be friends.
Every time you say Obama should be “more presidential” it always seems to mean “he should stop calling out the Republicans on their bullshit”. Never do you suggest that perhaps the Republicans should stop spouting bullshit in the first place.
But I digress. You were saying something about being partisan?
Actually, I get the impression that Obama is the one complaining about the meanness of the other side, while Republicans basically just refuse to work with him as long as he makes it clear he’s not interested.
Saying on one hand that you want to negotiate while on the other attacking your opposition, even after reaching a deal, says that you never really wanted to negotiate.
If he makes a deal with the Russians on nuclear arms reduction, I wonder if he’ll attack Putin for it?
That’s ridiculous. Obama’s flaw is that he’s gone too far in trying to work with Republicans. They’re so used to him offering them carrots that they’ve lost all fear of a possibile stick.
He’s gone less far than clinton did. Clinton never demanded revenue increases in exchange for spending cuts. Clinton thought taxes were high enough. In fact, he said, “I think I raised your taxes too much.” And sure enough, not only did Clinton and the Republicans cut spending, they cut taxes too.
So, why should Republicans give into Obama’s revenue demands when they can just wait for either a Republican administration or a Clinton administration and get a better deal?
Clinton thought taxes were too high and worked with both parties in Congress on lowering them (and lowering spending). Then the Bush administration lowered taxes further and raised spending - causing a huge deficit. So now we need to bring taxes back up to where they were under the Clinton administration not lower them further and cause a bigger deficit problem.
Democrats aren’t against tax cuts - all politicians love tax cuts. (Don’t forget over 80% of the Democrats in Congress voted in favor of the 1997 tax cut.) They’re just not ready to make irresponsible tax cuts.
January 20, 2009. On the day Obama is sworn in for his first term, Republicans hold a meeting in a Washington restaurant. They decide that they will not cooperate with Obama on any issue and that they want to smother his presidency in the crib. How the fuck did Obama bring that on?
Taxes are back where they were, at least for the rich. Higher actually, because ACA has more taxes for the rich. So unless you’re proposing middle class tax increases, or the President is, revenue increases are done.
That’s a rather selective reading of history. Every Republican in Congress voted against Clinton’s 1993 tax increases, declaring it the biggest tax increase in history. In passing that with Al Gore’s tiebreaking vote, Democrats defeated a Republican proposal to cut hundreds of billions in spending instead of increasing taxes.