What Alan Bock said in the OC Register:
It’s not that there isn’t a good deal of truth in such criticisms of the ways of a “Washington” he invoked more as an epithet than a place. But at what point does a president of the United States take responsibility for his part in feeding the atmosphere of distrust?
Barack Obama has been president for a little more than a year, during which time his party has had a theoretically filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (a rare occurrence) and a substantial majority in the House. During that time he has engaged in a goodly share of partisan sniping while making only empty gestures toward the will-o-the-wisp of bipartisan cooperation. He’s the ultimate insider. Yet he took no responsibility for the poisonous atmosphere in Washington, trying to make believe that he is still quite above it all.
Yep. You can only convincingly run against Washington when you aren’t part of its culture of failure. That’s part of the reason for Scott Brown’s success in Massachusetts. At some point — and God only knows when this will happen — the statute of limitations on blaming Bush will run out and President Obama will have to take responsibility for his own actions. Until then, we all must suffer through complex explanations of why the consequences of Democrat / Obama policies are all Bush’s fault. Yay.
It’s going to be a very long three years…