Barbour: “This is the most political presidency we’ve ever had”

At the RNC last night, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal got pretty vociferous with his “the GOP needs to stop being the stupid party” refrain, a sentiment to which Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour assented on CBS this morning — and added that President Obama’s second inaugural address readily revealed that his “post-partisan” presidency, isn’t. Preach, governor:

Well, the point he made is exactly right. When you consider that two Senate candidates… the comments that they made were stupid comments, offensive comments, and in today’s world, when a candidate in one state says something, the negative effect can spill over to lots of other candidates, and Bobby Jindal was exactly right. …It was an honest statement that when you talk in Washington budget terms, you’re committing yourself to a lot of things that not only the public doesn’t understand, but it’s very misleading. In Washington, it is a cut when spending goes up, but just not as fast as was planned. For the average American family, that is, spending goes up more slowly. For the left, they say to the public, they’re cutting spending by trillions and trillions, even though spending’s going up. To get in that jargon, and to use that lingo, Bobby Jindal’s exactly right. We need to make the truth obvious to voters. … This is the most political presidency we’ve ever had. It’s the perpetual campaign. As soon as the campaign was over and we started talking about the first serious piece of business, the fiscal cliff, the Obama administration ran it purely like a political address. …Where the vast majority of Americans are worried about economic growth, about job creation, about these gigantic unprecedented deficits and the debt that we have, he hardly mentioned that in his inaugural address.

I think its safe to say that there’s a solid consensus forming among some top Republicans on a couple of points, whatever other ‘soul-searching’ the party may need to do; 1) that President Obama is most definitely out to “annihilate” the GOP, and 2) conservatives better wise up and quit allowing themselves to fall prey to the Democrats’ soul-crushing antics. That’s essentially the point Peggy Noonan made in her column today: Of course President Obama wants to break up the GOP, and he isn’t a foe to sneeze at.

He doesn’t care if you like him—he’d just as soon you did, but it’s not necessary for him. He is certain he is right in what he’s doing, which is changing the economic balance between rich and poor. The rich are going to be made less rich, and those who are needy or request help are going to get more in government services, which the rich will pay for. He’d just as soon the middle class don’t get lost in the shuffle, but if they wind up marginally less middle class he won’t be up nights. The point is redistribution. …

Mr. Obama is not, as has been said, the left’s Ronald Reagan. Reagan won over, Mr. Obama just wins. What Mr. Obama really is is Franklin D. Roosevelt without the landslides. He has the same seriousness of intent but nothing like the base of support. …

It will take guts and unity to fight him. Can the GOP, just in Washington, for now, develop those things?

• Bobby Jindal: Paternalistic, big-government liberalism is the biggest loser here
• Chris Christie: “I’ll be here to welcome” Obama when he comes to tour the NJ coast again next week
• MSNBC consensus: Obama’s speech was historic, amazing, “one of the best of his presidency”

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