My Dear Wife Was Kind Enough To Remind Me

Exactly how far our lonely Liberal war on the Big Lie of Fake Centrism has come.

In 2008, the leading Democratic candidates for President spent much of their time sparring over which of them was best qualified to show enough bipartisan leg to woo the intractably deranged meatsticks on the Right:

(AP) Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama touted themselves as willing and able to work civilly with members of the Republican party during interviews with a newspaper in Ohio, where voters head to the polls Tuesday for a crucial primary election.

During her seven years as a U.S. senator serving New York, Clinton said, she has worked with members of the GOP on topics including child safety, veterans' issues and military readiness.

"My record is clear," Clinton said in a telephone call Thursday with The Cincinnati Enquirer editorial board. "Some people have been surprised by the collegiality between me and my colleagues across the aisle."

But Obama said he less inclined to give in to partisanship.

"Her natural inclination is to draw a picture of Republicans as people who need to be crushed and defeated," the U.S. senator from Illinois said in a separate telephone interview with the newspaper.

"It's not entirely her fault. She's been the target of some unfair attacks in the past."

As president, he said, he'd work with both Democrats and Republicans in Congress.

"I'm not a person who believes any one party has a monopoly on wisdom," he said.

That was four years ago.

Four years later, in the Year of our Lord 2012, having wasted a considerable percentage of his first term term trying to woo the intractably deranged meatsticks on the Right by baring enough bipartisan leg, thigh, bikini area, abdomen, side boob, décolletage, neck, back and fanny to run afoul of the blue laws in 31 states, President Obama has finally concluded the following:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think we're all frustrated. You know, the only thing I would-- I would caution against, David, is I think this notion of, "Well, both sides are just kind of unwilling to cooperate." And that's just not true. I mean if you look at the facts, what you have is a situation here where the Democratic Party, warts and all, and certainly me, warts and all, have consistently done our best to try to put country first. And to try to work with everybody involved to make sure that we've got an economy that grows, make sure that it works for everybody, make sure that we're keeping the country safe. And, you know, the-- the-- does the Democratic Party still have some knee jerk ideological positions and are there some folks in the Democratic Party who sometimes aren't reasonable? Of course. That-- that's true of every political party.

But generally if you look at how I've tried to govern over the last four years and how I'll continue to try to govern, I'm not driven by some ideological agenda. I’m a pretty practical guy and I just want to make sure that things work. And-- and one of the nice things about never having another election again, I will never campaign again, is, you know, I think you can rest assure that all I care about is making sure that I leave behind an America that is stronger, more prosperous, you know, more stable, more secure than it was when I-- I came into office and-- and that's going to continue to drive me. And I-- I think that the issue that we're dealing with right now in the fiscal cliff is a prime example of it. What I'm arguing for are maintaining tax cuts for 98 percent of Americans. I don't think anybody would consider that some liberal left wing agenda. That’s some-- that-- that used to be considered a pretty mainstream Republican agenda.

And it's something that we can accomplish today if we simply allow for a vote in the Senate and in the House to get it done. The fact that it's not happening is an indication of, you know, how far certain factions inside the Republican Party have gone where they-- they can't even accept what used to be considered centrist, mainstream positions on these issues...

I believe what you are trying to say, Mr. President, is that once again it turned out the Dirty Fucking Hippies were right all along.

You're welcome.