From a Politico.com piece by Glenn Thrush and Patrick O'Connor (in italics):

A fired-up Barack Obama ditched his TelePrompter to rally House Democrats and rip Republican opponents of his recovery   package Thursday night – at one point openly mocking the GOP for failing to follow through on promises of bipartisanship.

In what was the most pointedly partisan speech of his young presidency, Obama rejected Republican arguments that massive spending in the $819 billion stimulus bill that passed the House should be replaced by a new round of massive tax cuts. 

A presidential record—only 15 days to eschew a central campaign theme.  So much for a new spirit of cooperation.  Apparently, Obama, like Bush 43, thinks bipartisanship is getting the other side to do exactly what you want.  It seems people are catching on that listening and soliciting ideas does not equate to compromise—a little give has to accompany the take. 

Set aside the technical and historical economic arguments I've made in past posts and just consider for a moment how bad this "stimulus" proposal must be if a popular President with a substantial majority in each house and a generally supportive media can't get it across the finish line.  Where are the vaunted instincts we heard so much about during the campaign?  What happened to the promise to scrutinize spending initiatives page by page and line by line?  Why can't the supposedly savvy Rahm Emanuel read the tea leaves?  Who thought it was a good idea to give the exceedingly liberal Democrat House leadership carte blanche to craft the package.  Wasn't it obvious they'd stuff it like a Thanksgiving turkey?  Shouldn't a shrewd presidential team have been more adept at controlling the process?

I hoped that Obama's election might trigger a real groundswell of optimism and a resurgence of confidence.  Perhaps it's not too late.  Unfortunately, all the missteps, coupled with the repeated talking down of the economy and incessant fear mongering, are having the opposite impact.

During the 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan famously said, "Recession is when your neighbor loses his job.  Depression is when you lose your job.  Recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his job."   For the sake of our collective economic health, let's hope the 2012 Republican nominee is not paraphrasing that quote.