President Barack Obama played the healer-in-chief once the budget impasse ended with a victory for him on Wednesday.
But that self-serving role came only after he had spent four weeks reprising his 2012 campaign role as ruthless-partisan-in-chief.
On Oct. 8, for example, he used the White House press room to portray Republicans as arsonists, kidnappers, deadbeats, butchers, lunatics and extortionists, obsessives, out-of-touch hostage-takers, nuclear-armed terrorists and extremists. (RELATED: Obama offers to fairly negotiate with nuclear-armed GOP terrorists)
On Thursday, however, he was all sweetness and light as he sought to reassure Americans about his gauzily-described plans to revamp the budget and establish immigration “reform.”
In practice, he’s trying to raise taxes, boost spending and triple immigration rates.
None of those goals are popular with swing voters, so Obama offered vague reassurance, honeyed calls for bipartisanship, self-effacing promises of humility and noble appeals for good government.
“Those of us who have the privilege to serve this country have an obligation to do our job as best we can,” he declared. “We come from different parties, but we are Americans first. And that’s why disagreement cannot mean dysfunction. It can’t degenerate into hatred.”
“We can debate those differences vigorously, passionately, in good faith,” he said. “There’s no good reason why we can’t govern responsibly, despite our differences.”
“When we disagree, we don’t have to suggest that the other side doesn’t love this country or believe in free enterprise, or all the other rhetoric that seems to get worse every single year,” he said, without mentioning his Oct. 8 tirade where he suggested the other side are arsonists, kidnappers, deadbeats, butchers, lunatics and extortionists, obsessives, out-of-touch hostage-takers, nuclear-armed terrorists and extremists.