The Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts tackles the GOP's "tar baby" rhetoric and calls on President Obama to realize it's not politics as usual.
Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, "your boy," that "tar baby," the president of the United Sates, Barack Obama:
Ahem.
The first title was bestowed upon Obama by political commentator Patrick Buchanan on Tuesday, the second by U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn on the Friday before last, the third by the American electorate in November of 2008. If the first two seem to cancel out the third, well, that’s the point. One hopes they will help the president understand something he has thus far refused to grasp about his political opposition.
Namely, these people don't want to be friends. They don't want to compromise for the greater good. They don’t want to solve problems unless by problems you mean his continued tenancy in that mansion on Pennsylvania Ave.
They have not been coy about this. Rush Limbaugh said it ("I hope he fails") when Mrs. Obama was still picking out a dress for the inauguration. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in November that, in a time of war and recession, his number one goal is to deny Obama a second term.
Read Leonard Pitts' complete column at the Miami Herald.