For example, last week Mr. Obama suggested that Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell was “cynical and deceptive” in arguing that the administration’s financial regulation bill would allow more bailouts “when he knows that it would do just the opposite.” Does implying the Senate GOP leader is a hypocrite and a liar make reaching compromise easier?
Mr. Obama even draws on the Bible for political attacks. In a teleconference with religious groups supporting health-care reform, he accused opponents of the legislation of “bearing false witness.” Or take last September when, in a health-care speech to Congress, the president—in a single paragraph—accused his critics of spreading “bogus claims” and “lies” and of being “cynical” and “irresponsible.”
Even if you believe, as the president does, that the concerns of his critics are wrong, why use such sulfuric rhetoric? This is not the kind of thing the president’s predecessor, his predecessor’s father or President Ronald Reagan did or would allow their staff to routinely do.
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