-By Warner Todd Huston
Obama is going to bring a new age of “working together” to D.C. He is the man to initiate that era of nice we’ve all been waiting for. He is captain bi-partisan… remember all that? When he finally got to the Oval Office he had a few meetings and some cocktails with a few Republicans. Everyone hailed this as the “new” Washington the promised land of post-partisanship.
Then came the omnibus spending bill. It was planned entirely by the Democrats in Congress, the Republican leadership thoroughly excluded from the planning sessions. Obama said not a word nor did he raise a finger to change the situation. It shouldn’t be surprising because the flavor was set by Obama early. When asked about working across the aisle, Obama told Republicans that he didn’t have to. “I won,” he pointedly said.
Unfortunately, the wool is still firmly swathing the eyes of the American people. So, we continue to chronicle every instance that makes the lie to Obama’s desire to “reach across the aisle” and we take inventory of the truth. This week we had yet one more example to report.
Remembering that Obama claimed he wanted a new attitude in government, an aspect of that would include, it must be assumed, common courtesy. In this case, common courtesy might include a friendly phone call to a representative to alert him that the president is going to be visiting his district — no matter what party that representative might belong to. It’s just the courteous thing to do, wouldn’t you say?
Well, you would be wrong. It turns out that Barack Obama saw no reason to alert a Republican Representative that he was going to be in his California district last week. Obama DID, however, invite a Democrat from another district to appear along side of him at a townhall meeting there.
So, not only did Obama not have the common courtesy of alerting an elected official that he was going to appear in that representative’s district, but Obama imported another representative from a different district to appear with him.
The snubbed representative was Dana Rohrabacher of California’s 46th District. Rohrabacher was not told by the office of the president that Obama was going to appear at a townhall in the 46th.
But, there he was, on stage with California’s Lt. Governor, Representative Hilda Soliz, and Representative Loretta Sanchez. None of them from the district in which the townhall was being held.
As an after thought, Obama’s Chief of Staff, Rham Emanuel, called Representative Rohrabacher and “apologized” claiming it was an honest mistake.
“Mistake” or no this incident is a perfect example of how bi-partisanship and a new tone is in no way whatever uppermost in Obama’s mind or any integral part of his governing style. If it were, such niceties as a call to Rohrabacher would have been at the top of the agenda, and it would have been made long before Obama even left Washington.
But it wasn’t. A call was only an after thought effort made in an attempt to stave off embarrassing publicity.
Bi-partisanship is not Obama’s plan. It never was. It never will be.
(Photo credit: Washingtonpost.com)
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, Human Events Magazine, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston
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