Washington’s Endless Civil War by Robert Shrum

by Robert Shrum Jan 11, 2013 4:45 AM EST

Right-wing legislators can’t believe Obama is still in the White House—and they’re ready to obstruct him at almost any cost.

Forget the permanent campaign. We are in a state of permanent political war—and perhaps near permanent paralysis.

In The New York Times, Maureen Dowd bangs a persistent drum about Barack Obama as Mr. Spock, the über-rational anti-politician with “a revulsion for playing the game”—“the flattering, schmoozing, and ring-kissing needed to coax Congress into doing what he wants.” The complaint has morphed into a meme that offers a simple way through: presumably Obama-the-back-slapper would soon be signing bills left and right.

And like a lot of simple explanations, it’s tempting; it resonates with prevailing perceptions and preconceptions; and at least in Dowd’s prose, it’s interesting and diverting.

But it’s a diversion that hardly survives a few minutes of thought. Yes, this president is not a garrulous, anecdote-trading phone buddy with members of Congress like, say, Bill Clinton—although that didn’t keep the GOP House from impeaching him or shutting down the government. Does anybody really believe that John Boehner would jeopardize his zombie speakership for regular rounds of golf with Barack Obama at Joint Base Andrews? Or that copious cups of tea in the Oval Office would persuade Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell to escalate the risk of a Tea Party challenge to his re-nomination in the 2014 Kentucky primary?

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/11/washington-s-endless-civil-war.html