An Open Letter to President Obama About the Republicans

(...) The lack of cooperation you're getting from the Republican Party will continue. You were right to indulge in a little bit of tokenism when you had to Pastor Rick Warren pray at your inauguration. But if you think that the Republicans in Congress and the Senate are going to do more than their utmost to obstruct everything you are and what you stand for you're dreaming.

(...) the Republican Party is controlled by two ideological groups. First, is the Religious Right. Second, are the neoconservatives. Both groups share one thing in common: they are driven by fear and paranoia. Between them there is no Republican "center" for you to appeal to, just two versions of hate-filled extremes.

The Religious Right supply the kind of people who at McCain and Palin rallies were yelling things such as "kill him" about you. That's the constituency to which your hand was extended when looking for compromise on your financial bailout bill.

There's only one thing that makes sense for you now. Mr. President, you need to forget a bipartisan approach and get on with the business of governing by winning each battle. You will never be able to work with the Republicans because they hate you. Believe me, Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the norm not the exception. James Dobson and the rest are praying for you to fail. The neoconservatives are gnashing their teeth and waiting for you to "sell out Israel" or "show weakness" in Afghanistan, whatever, so they can declare you a traitor.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/an-open-letter-to-preside_b_165359.html

Love to see that- it's the rational thing to do. But I won't hold my breath- especially after this last go round, where revenue sharing for beleaguered states got sold down the river....

Single stupidest thing that could have been done to appease Republicans (and if he'd called their bluff, he'd still have gotten the votes, without thoroughly hamstringing the stimulus).

in public opinion.

People want to see a president who is tough, and a better way to do that than killing some people in the Third World is standing up to the GOP--and their fellow travelers in the Democratic Party.

No matter what kind of majority a president has they very rarely get everything they want. If President Obama can be seen as being reasonable and reaching out to the other side, read moderate Republicans and Independents, he could conceivably pull people from those groups over to the Democratic side at least as far as voting. If he can accomplish this the Republican party will be further marginalized as the party of right wing fanatics and ideologues (yeah I know we are aware of this already but I am talking about the general public).

I would say that recent events support the position that it won't work that way, because it isn't working that way. The GOP isn't marginalized. Instead, they were empowered to have a huge influence on the stimulus bill. They used that influence to make it a significantly worse bill.

And when their influence results in less effective economic rescue, they will blame it all on Obama and the Democrats. And if the Dems do not take the rhetorical initiative by pre-framing what's going to happen as a result of GOP obstructionism, it will work.

Rinse, repeat.

may our President take heed. :D