The Backward Party-The president offers an extended critique of Republicans. [View All]

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The Backward Party
The president offers an extended critique of Republicans.
By John Dickerson
Posted Wednesday, June 2, 2010, at 6:55 PM ET


The Obama Partisanship Meter took another small jump today. When last we checked the needle, President Obama had tweaked Republicans at a Democratic fundraiser, using pointed language to blame them for doing nothing to help improve the economy. It was an escalation in his rhetoric, but it was delivered to a partisan crowd. Today, in a noncampaign event, Obama made his critique more explicit.

The Democratic National Committee will be relying this fall on the president to sell the economic recovery and define the opposition. In Pittsburgh Wednesday, Obama did both.

He didn't simply criticize Republicans. He implicated them in a unified and multifaceted narrative of blame. After explaining how his administration had reacted to the financial crisis, Obama told of how the opposition hadn't been much help. His opponents, he said, were playing politics. "Before I was even inaugurated, the congressional leaders of the other party got together and made a calculation that if I failed, they'd win," he said. The president then turned to the merits of their argument. "To be fair," he started, as if to suggest he might be, "a good deal of the other party's opposition to our agenda has been rooted in their sincere and fundamental belief about the role of government."

Noncraven Republicans who did not attend the pre-inauguration "Obama Must Fail" meeting might have thought he was going to assign them to a more benevolent category. They were soon disappointed. The president went on to define what Republican beliefs entailed: "It's an agenda that basically offers two answers to every problem we face: more tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer rules for corporations." The president left out their plan to punish the elderly and infirm just for sport. (For those interested in a more thoughtful speech, and a more generous interpretation of conservatism, read the president's remarks recently at the University of Michigan commencement.)

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http://www.slate.com/id/2255836/