Required Reading

Ron Fournier is on another tear:

The turnaround on Russia is no more remarkable than the pivot Obama took after the 2008 election, when he abandoned his post-partisan brand at the first sight of Republican intransigence and forced the Affordable Care Act through Congress without GOP backing. Once poisoned, the well went dry: The candidate who had the “audacity to hope” for a new kind of politics surrendered to the toxic culture he promised to change. Obama wrote off Republicans. He said House Speaker John Boehner can’t or won’t bargain on the budget, then wrapped the white flag of surrender around the debt, gun control, tax reform, immigration, and other issues. Obama stopped looking for compromises, and then expressed outrage when he couldn’t find them.

The only flaw here is the illusion — bordering after five-plus years on delusion — that Professor Ditherton Wiggleroom ever meant any of that stuff about a post-partisan Washington or a new kind of politics or hope or change or any of the feel-good messaging from 2008. Wiggleroom is a one-party pol from a one-party town and despite some nice words, he’s never once governed in any other way.

But do still read Fournier’s entire column today.