Bipartisanship We Can Believe

From a campaign filled with the words hope, change and bipartisanship to an administration filled with:

"I won."

"I will trump you on that."

"You can't just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done."

Wow, what a change a week makes. Well, actually less than a week. I suppose the honeymoon's over before it ever began. And so is all the talk and hype from the campaign to stamp out the partisan bickering in Washington.

Welcome to the reality of the Obama administration. He's actually using a rather clever strategy to isolate Republicans and even some moderate to leaning conservative Democrats (if any exist). The idea is to follow Rule 11 of Saul Alinksy's "Rules for Radicals" (http://www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/rules.html):

Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.

Obama is following this tactic to the letter.

Don't allow debate about the actual topic, in this case, the nearly TRILLION dollar "stimulus" package Obama wants to ram through Congress. Instead create a distraction, such as Rush Limbaugh, or polarize it by claiming to be able to trump any opposition. If this doesn't work, then denigrate the private sector. Excoriate Merrill Lynch for spending $1.2 million to rennovate an executive suite, even though such action provided numerous jobs for contractors, designers, laborers, decorators -- all direct stimulation to the economy.

Obama's stimulus plan is truly just a "pork-ulus" plan. The Office of Management and Budget has rejected this plan and says the vast majority of this stuff is not going to get spent 'til after 2010 or 2011, and 2010 just happens to be reelection year.

We've already passed one stimulus plan that has done nothing to rescue the country from recession and now we are getting ready to spend another trillion dollars. Why? Because the government simply cannot understand that it is impossible for them to spend their way to prosperity.

Sadly, Obama is right. He won. He has the votes to pass whatever he wants, despite the lame opposition that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid voiced. Their bleating that they will not be a rubber stamp for the Obama administration is like dust in the wind. Whatever Obama asks for, Congress will pass.

That's the new bipartisanship in Washington.

I won. So get over it and just give me what I want.

And like the reporters in the White House press room discovered last Thursday, don't dare question the president. "I didn't come down here today to answer questions."

Remember... this is truly an imperial presidency. Obama rules, reporters drool.