Obama denounces political demonization last year, embraces yesterday

In January 2010, President Obama took the opportunity to denounce the day-to-day political demonization inside the beltway. It was just too much … and would not get us anywhere. Well, that was last year, and today is a lot different.

Hat tip to Sweetness & Light, who links us to the president’s address to the Republican’s House Issues Conference in Baltimore last year. Some select quotes…

I think both sides can take some blame for a sour climate on Capitol Hill.  What I can do maybe to help is to try to bring Republican and Democratic leadership together on a more regular basis with me.  That’s, I think, a failure on my part, is to try to foster better communications even if there’s disagreement.  And I will try to see if we can do more of that this year. …

… we’re not going to be able to do anything about any of these entitlements if what we do is characterized, whatever proposals are put out there, as, well, you know, that’s — the other party is being irresponsible; the other party is trying to hurt our senior citizens; that the other party is doing X, Y, Z. …

… if we’re going to frame these debates in ways that allow us to solve them, then we can’t start off by figuring out, A, who’s to blame; B, how can we make the American people afraid of the other side.  And unfortunately, that’s how our politics works right now.  And that’s how a lot of our discussion works.  That’s how we start off — every time somebody speaks in Congress, the first thing they do, they stand up and all the talking points …

From Obama’s speech yesterday, which definitely set a totally different tone with a very offensive attack on conservatives. Courtesy Jake Tapper at ABCNews…

One vision has been championed by Republicans in the House of Representatives and embraced by several of their party’s presidential candidates…This is a vision that says up to 50 million Americans have to lose their health insurance in order for us to reduce the deficit. And who are those 50 million Americans? Many are someone’s grandparents who wouldn’t be able afford nursing home care without Medicaid. Many are poor children. Some are middle-class families who have children with autism or Down’s syndrome. Some are kids with disabilities so severe that they require 24-hour care. These are the Americans we’d be telling to fend for themselves.

Head over to Mark Levin’s site and listen to yesterday’s full interview with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) for some details on how Republicans – and the media – were sold a bill of goods about this speech. Everyone expected a “reaching out” moment and what they got was the official kick-off of the 2012 election campaign.