Obama's Reagan problem: Salon

Quoted via Salon:

Feb. 10, 2009 | Barack Obama is constitutionally inclined to be a conciliator and a difference-splitter. As a legislator in Illinois, he was noted for his ability to get different parties to come together. In both his books, he appeals for America to go beyond old labels and ideological pigeonholes. And in his 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, the speech that launched his national political career, he famously said, "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. There is the United States of America."

They're soaring words. Unfortunately, they're not true. And Obama (and America) has just paid a steep political price for his misplaced faith in bipartisanship. more