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Obama's Divide? Share That Blame

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

Considering the stubbornness of his opposition, I thought President Barack Obama was being quite generous in to express "regrets" over his role in Washington's dysfunction.

"It's one of the few regrets of my presidency," he said, "that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better."

He shouldn't be too hard on himself, in my view. When it comes to stirring "rancor and suspicion," he had plenty of assistance from his stubbornly resistant conservative adversaries.

I am not one to complain, as many Obama supporters do, that the nation's first black president has had a rougher road than any previous president. Who can forget the blizzard of allegations, myths and rumors that were showered on Bill and Hillary Clinton during his presidency?

Expect more of the same if his wife is nominated for the presidency this year, as expected.

Obama should have expected no less, as I wrote at the time of his first inaugural: Nobody promised him a rose garden, except for the big official one behind the White House.

 

Sure, both parties try to block their rivals' agendas. That's politics.

But as Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein point out in their book, "It's Even Worse than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collided with the New Politics of Extremism," there has been a glaring difference in recent years in Congress.

While today's congressional Democrats will boast about their ability to work with Republicans to get things done, Mann and Ornstein point out, Republicans who work across the aisle risk condemnation and even primary election challenges from their fellow Republicans.

The result has been gridlock, shutdowns, saber rattling and brinkmanship, emboldened by a Republican race to the farthest-right positions.

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(c) 2016 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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