19 nov 2008

Obama Is Killing the GOP With Kindness

Now that Barack Obama and John McCain met on Monday, it's looking increasingly as though McCain will be offered a position by Obama. Where will Obama's team of rivals idea end? Will Dick Cheney be offered a post as well?

Maybe Hillary Clinton and McCain won't serve in the Obama administration, after all. Bill Clinton's manifold business activities, if that's the right term, may render it too complicated for Hillary to pass muster. And whether she really wants the post remains an open question.

But it's clear that Obama is taking a radically different approach to the presidency than George W. Bush. Where Bush sought to polarize, Obama is taking the opposite approach. He wants to embrace the opposition in order to create his own kind of stealth presidency. Instead of trying to crush an already enfeebled Republican opposition, Obama is seeking to further weaken it by depriving it of an enemy -- himself. Democrats who worry that Obama is selling out to the opposition may have it backwards. His ingenious approach could end up marginalizing the GOP for decades. Tapping Cheney might be going one step too far, but could a post for the Decider himself be far behind?

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