It’s interesting to see how one’s perspective changes as circumstances evolve, isn’t it? For instance, when young liberals start owning property and paying taxes, they often tend to become more conservative as they get older. And when Senators who filibuster Supreme Court candidates and claim that the founders wanted the upper chamber to force compromise and avoid “majoritarian rule” become Presidents with large majorities in Congress in support of their agenda, they eventually forget the wisdom of the architects of American government. The Blaze offers this evolution in Obama’s thinking from 2005 to his appearance on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show last night:
Say, maybe we should ask a Constitutional law scholar to give us an analysis of the founders’ thinking on this question. Oh, wait …
The most amusing aspect of Obama’s whining is that he did have a 60-seat majority in the Senate for a good portion of the 111th Congress. Unfortunately, Obama used that period of time between Al Franken’s seating and Scott Brown’s victory in Massachusetts to push ObamaCare, a deeply unpopular bill not only with Republicans but also some Democrats as well. In fact, Obama didn’t need Republican votes for his agenda during that period of time. The real problem was that Obama couldn’t get Democratic votes for his bills, and had to continually fight his own caucus to push through the takeover of the health-care system.
Put this another way. Obama may be the only President in American history who claimed not to have been able to pass major agenda items because he only has a 77-seat majority in the House and an 18-seat majority in the Senate. That strongly suggests that either the agenda itself was the problem, or the President involved was an incompetent. I’d say — both.
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