Joe Conason

says what I have been saying about Obama all along. I maintained Obama's idea of "postpartisanship" and "reaching across the aisle" simply would not work with Republicans; they want him to fail, and the cynic in me said the GOP threw the election last fall in the hopes Obama would fail to turn around the mess the GOP created.

Conason:

But if seeking consensus is still his strategy, as he and his advisors insist, it may be time for a rethink. All the months of bipartisanship in talk and tactics from the White House have neither brought congressional Republicans closer to supporting Obama's objectives nor preserved Obama's early support among moderate voters. What they have done is encourage the most outrageous conduct by his opponents – including those who themselves claim the bipartisan mantle – and make the president look weak.

The simple truth is that there is nobody on the Republican side who wants to negotiate with Obama. They are no longer afraid of him, and they unanimously want to ruin his presidency, regardless of the consequences. They are in thrall to the stupid extremism that questions the president's citizenship and suspects that he is driving the country toward a socialist dictatorship – while simultaneously demanding angrily that the government be stopped from interfering with Medicare.

These people don't care; they HATE this country because they are in thrall with a twisted ideology.

If Obama had just studied what was done to Bill Clinton when he was president, he might have had a clue of what the opposition is all about. But he didn't.