Byron York writes about Obama railing against the attempts by Republicans to stop his railroading of the United States:
In his speech at a Denver fundraiser yesterday, President Obama repeated what has become a key talking point for Democrats — that the Senate “doesn’t get anything done” and the reason for that is that some Republicans, who “don’t believe in government,” are happy to block the administration’s initiatives because blocking government initiatives is “consistent with their philosophy.” Here’s what the president said:
Look, something you got to understand — for those who don’t believe in government, those who don’t believe that we have obligations to each other, it’s a lot easier task. If you can gum up the works, if you make things broken, if the Senate doesn’t get anything done, well, that’s consistent with their philosophy. It’s a whole lot easier to say no to everything. It’s a whole lot easier to blame somebody else. That politics that feeds on peoples’ insecurities, especially during tough political times — that’s the easiest kind of politics. There’s a long, storied history of that kind of politics.
It’s a charge you’ll no doubt hear more in the coming campaign.
The point of Byron’s article is to point out the flip-flop of this talking point since it wasn’t too long ago that the President was praising Congress about how much they got done because of his “new direction.”
I don’t disagree and its a valid point to bring up but I want to point out that Obama didn’t complain about this kind of behavior when the Democrats were the minority during the Bush administration. Why didn’t he bring up the blocking of legislation by Democrats on The Patriot Bill? Bush’s energy bill? The border security bill? Parental notification bill? Class-action lawsuit reform?
And this was only after five minutes of digging (if you find more examples please leave them in the comments).
So why wasn’t he complaining then?
Because back then it was ok to shut down the Senate on important matters because they didn’t want the legislation. But now that the Democrats are in power its NOT ok.
Hypocrisy, thy name is the Democratic Party.
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