this has to stop

Obama: 'Worst kind of partisanship'


'Washington doesn’t have the capacity to come together and get things done,' President Obama said. | AP Photo Close

By JULIE MASON | 8/11/11 3:34 PM EDT

An impassioned President Barack Obama said Thursday he shares the frustration Americans are feeling with Washington, telling workers in Michigan that the fight over the debt ceiling reflected “the worst kind of partisanship.”

“The only thing preventing these bills from being passed is the refusal of some folks in Congress to put country ahead of party, Obama said. “There are some in Congress right now who would rather see their opponents lose than see America win. And that has to stop. It’s got to stop. We’re supposed to all be on the same team. Especially when we’re going through tough times.”

His indirect reference to tea party Republicans in Congress marked his strongest denunciation yet of their influence in policymaking — and harkened back to the Bush-era politics of patriotism.

“There is nothing wrong with our country. There is something wrong with our politics,” Obama said at a Johnson Controls Inc., plant in Holland, Mich.

His voice rising, Obama said the recent credit downgrade was avoidable — but for the entrenched Washington gridlock that results from putting politics ahead of the best interests of the country.

“It didn’t happen because we don’t have the capacity to pay our bills, it happened because Washington doesn’t have the capacity to come together and get things done,” Obama said. “It’s why people are frustrated. Maybe you hear in my voice, it’s why I’m frustrated.”

The president said he is resisting calls to summon Congress back to Washington to work on deficit reduction because “the last thing we need is Congress spending more time arguing in Washington, D.C.”

Obama’s visit to Michigan is part of the administration’s effort to refocus on jobs, and particularly green jobs. Johnson Controls won a $300 million grant from the stimulus program that is expected to create 150 new jobs. The company manufactures batteries for hybrid and electric cars.

Republicans, however, are highlighting high unemployment in Michigan, a key state for Obama’s reelection efforts. Joblessness in the state is 10.5 percent — higher than the national average of 9.1 percent.

Robert Schostak, chairman of the Michigan Republican Party, said the state has lost 50,000 jobs since Obama became president.

“The bottom line of the visit to Holland, Michigan today: It’s more failed policies, more bad ideas,” Schostak said on a conference call previewing the president’s visit. “We need to be focused on what Michigan families need … and hold this administration accountable at the ballot box next November.”


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I'm so surprised he feels this way.... now. He didn't mind it when he and his party controlled congress and rammed thru the stimulus bill and the health care bill with no acceptance of bipartisanship on either of those bills. Nope. If a Repub had things to add or take away from either of those bills, they were pushed away.

playing tit for tat while your nation drags the world into the soup line maybe fun but it doesn’t save any one.. let alone 200 million Americans

what I am trying to say in my usual havy handed way is: It's no longer busniess as usual.. the normal tit for tat game between republican/tea-party and the demarcates has been toss out of the water by the downgrading of America.. the worrying outcome of that shock around the world has evey one on the edge of their seat.. dose the world slide downwards or can we keep bobbing along just under the water.. we- even the money men -are looking for someone to spring up with a plan which would take us above the waves.. in the 1930's it was fascism that offered away forward.. today we need some thing better then a tea-party/neocon version of those 1930's saviour