Obama tried conciliation

Once again, we see in stark terms that 'bipartisan' means do it the way the Republicans want and shut up about the rest:

Of the 219 Republicans in Congress, [Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania] were the only three who backed the bill.

The Republicans in the Senate have declared their willingness to filibuster anything, no matter how needed. Obama's honeymoon? Sorry, he doesn't get one from them.

The Republican rump in Congress does not accept the result of the election. They think - if you can call it thinking - that the voters swung that 2 x 4 that hit them between the eyes because John McCain wasn't conservative enough.

Obama wants to be President of the whole country. I can see why. Frustrations aside, it's what the country needs.

Barack at 47 is a mature man in full control of his emotions. Maybe being black in a white world helped make him this way. Maybe his mother and grandparents made him that way. Maybe it's just who he is.

This result - scant Republican support - could be ideal. Obama can fairly say that he made repeated and highly visible attempts to reach across the aisle but that they were all spurned.

Without being visibly angry the way I would have been, Obama has achieved a Democratic bill, passed by Democrats. He and they get all the credit when this succeeds.

Lindsay Graham doesn't even realize that he's been backed into a corner. He doesn't realize how overwhelming the Democratic majority is:

"You couldn't pick up one Republican in the House, and you lost 11 Democrats. You've lost more Democrats than you've picked up Republicans. That's not bipartisanship," he said Wednesday on CNN's "The Situation Room."

And Graham's alleged to be a moderate!

Of course, the upshot is that the Republicans have to try to make the economy and the country fail. Nothing new there. Again, this conservative party needs to be killed and replaced with one that has a semblance of moderation, a little sanity, and a clear belief in democracy.