IT'S ALMOST AS IF W WASN'T TO BLAME FOR BDS:

Post-Partisan Promise Fizzles (JONATHAN WEISMAN, 8/20/09, WSJ)

Barack Obama campaigned last year on a pledge to end the angry partisanship in Washington. He wasn't the first to promise a post-partisan presidency: Both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton offered a similar change, only to see the mutual hostility between Republicans and Democrats increase while they were in the White House.

Now, just as his predecessors did, Mr. Obama is seeing that promise turn to ashes. Angry town-hall meetings, slumping presidential approval poll numbers and rising opposition to his signature health-care proposals suggest an early resumption of politics as usual.

The big difference is that Bill Clinton and George W. Bush hadn't even won a majority of the vote and came to office with enormous ill-will directed at them on their first day. President Obama has squandered enormous good will and the genuine hopes of many even in the Republican Party that he'd succeed, especially in draining some of the poison from within the Beltway.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 20, 2009 6:57 AM