For The Usa
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America's willful blindness -- Obama is a divider not a unifier
By Douglas E. Schoen
The much discussed Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, which was released Thursday morning, shows a sharply divided America. Not much new there.
Half of those surveyed think that the across-the-board spending cuts that went into effect on Friday with the sequester will be too severe. And a smaller proportion of Americans say that they are necessary to reduce the deficit. Democrats would, unsurprisingly, prefer a plan that had fewer cuts and a majority of Republicans and independents show support for the cuts even if they do think the sequester is a bad idea (which they do).
To be sure, the impact of the sequester on the American psyche vis-à-vis economic outlook is a valuable addition to the budget battle discussion. But the finding that I see as most crucial in this poll is one that I have heard little about.
As Neil King Jr. writes, “By a more than 2-to-1 margin, poll participants say Mr. Obama is doing more than the GOP to unify the country in a bipartisan way. The poll found 48% of respondents saw Mr. Obama as trying to unify the country, compared with 22% who said that of Republicans and 37% who said that of the Democratic Party.”
That the electorate believes the president to be a unifying force for the country, and by no small amount, is completely incongruous with his actions on the campaign trail, through the fiscal cliff dispute, his inauguration speech, his State of the Union speech and now during the sequester negotiations.
Recent comments from President Obama include, “Republican leaders will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy” during a press conference on the debt ceiling in mid-January. And in his inaugural address while discussing climate change, he called Republicans neocons who don’t understand that “enduring peace and lasting security do not require perpetual war.” These are hardly the statements of a man working towards a united America.
Read more: http://nation.foxnews.com/barack-obama/2013/03/04/americas-willful-blindness-obama-divider-not-unifier#ixzz2MgHJ2Irs
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