Post-Partisan? Obama Has Let Us Down

Yesterday, we learned how Newt Gingrich is channeling Richard Nixon. Today, it's Barack Obama's turn. Two self-described "traditional liberal Democrats" take to the Washington Post to berate Obama for abandoning his promise of a "post-partisan America" and fully engaging in the "culture of attack politics." In fact, "we can think of only one other recent president who would display such indifference to the majesty of his office: Richard Nixon," write pollsters Douglas E. Schoen and Patrick H. Caddell.

They see parallels between Obama's rhetoric and Nixon's in 1970. "No president has been so persistently personal in his attacks as Obama throughout the fall. He has regularly attacked his predecessor, the House minority leader and—directly from the stump— candidates running for offices below his own." What happened to his "higher vision?" they wonder, laying out a litany of complaints about White House strategy. "On issue after issue this administration has acted in ways that are weakening the office of the president." (More President Obama stories.)