The Futility Of Obama’s Post-Partisanship

There’s been a lot of buzz lately about issues surrounding partisanship. There’s healthcare reform, which divides senators almost completely down party lines. There’s Scott Brown taking one of Massachusetts’ Senate seat, held for over a half-century by liberal lion Teddy Kennedy. And now Obama is planning on putting a spending freeze on some government programs, apparently signaling that he can both bulk up spending in certain areas and maintain a responsible budget.

As it happens, this move seems likely to vex both sides. Republicans will see the freeze as too little, too late (indeed, it would cover only 3 percent of the projected deficit), while Democrats will see this as yet another unfortunate conservative move, following closely on health care’s collapse and a troop increase in Afghanistan.

It would seem that in simultaneously increasing and cutting spending, Obama is trying to do the impossible. In fact, shooting for the impossible is at the root of one of Obama’s key failures: his inability to bring about his promised era of non-partisan politics. But the truth is, there is no non-partisan solution. Nomatter what the President does, his actions will be labeled in some partisan light. What would make more sense would be for Obama to simply focus more on just enacting strong policies.

–Aaron Bekemeyer