Comment on Diplomacy out, blunt talk in as Obama gets tough on GOP

By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press, San Francisco Chronicle: Politics
Sat, 04/18/2015 - 1:01am

Diplomacy out, blunt talk in as Obama gets tough on GOP

WASHINGTON (AP) — With a tone of outrage and eye-rolling dismissiveness, President Barack Obama and his White House team are working out their aggressions on Republicans. Even with a whiff of bipartisanship in the air, the president is going on offense and building on a strategy employed since Democrats lost control of the Senate. [...] the rhetoric carries risks of sounding peevish and signals that a president who once ran on the promise of changing the tone in Washington has fully embraced its political combat. Last Saturday, Obama hit McCain especially hard, after his 2008 presidential rival declared a major setback in the Iran nuclear talks after Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, demanded that sanctions against Tehran had to be lifted immediately after a deal went into place. [...] Pat Griffin, who was legislative director in the Clinton administration, said the tone from the White House dovetails with the aggressive strategy Obama has set since his party lost control of the Senate in November and put Congress in Republican hands. Top lawmakers on Thursday revealed a bipartisan agreement to give Obama authority to negotiate trade deals without having to face delays in Congress. "Rather than spending so much time criticizing people like Chuck Grassley and myself, he ought to be out there lining up the Democratic votes for trade promotion authority," McConnell said in an interview Friday. "If you're sitting at the White House looking at Republicans on Capitol Hill, especially on the House side, you can't expect either much respect from them or a willingness to get much done," said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former top aide to Reid.

 

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