Some parts of Glenn Rush’s interview with president Obama published in Politico on Monday were quite amusing. For example this paragraph:

Obama gives less ground when it comes to his own performance as president — repeating the message, from last month’s State of the Union address, that he’s “very proud of what we’ve gotten done over these last seven years” and that his “singular regret … is the fact that our body politic has become more polarized,” a situation he attributes to the actions of others — hyper-partisanship on the GOP side, gerrymandering, the media, super PACs.

The president left out perhaps the biggest contributor to the hyper-partisanship—himself.

The Government’s dysfunction began on his third day in office, January 23, 2009 when Eric Cantor offered the President a suggestion for the stimulus plan, Obama answered:

“Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.”

That got the ball rolling.  Because he had huge majorities in both the Senate and House, the president refused to accept any input on the trillion-dollar stimulus plan. The same thing happened with Obamacare which passed with only Democratic party votes.

September 2009 saw the President’s Organizing for America group try to sell Obamacare with a slam against the Tea Party:

All 50 States are coordinating in this – as we fight back against our own Right-Wing Domestic Terrorists who are subverting the American Democratic Process, whipped to a frenzy by their Fox Propaganda Network ceaselessly re-seizing power for their treacherous leaders.

February 2010 saw the president answering Republicans at a healthcare summit. McCain complained of “unsavory” dealmaking to get the bill passed in the Senate, including promises to give special deals to residents of Louisiana, Nebraska and Florida. McCain’s also complained that despite Obama’s promise the health care bill was not produced in the open, but “behind closed doors.”  Obama’s answer?
“We’re not campaigning anymore. The election’s over.”

In October 2010 the president tried too be bipartisan by blaming all the country’s problems on the GOP and inviting them to come along with him…as long as they sat in the back.

These are the folks whose policies help devastate our middle class. They drove our economy into a ditch. And we got in there and put on our boots. We pushed and we shoved and we were sweating. These guys were standing, watching us, sipping on a Slurpee. And they were pointing at us saying, ‘How come you’re not pushing harder? How com you’re not pushing faster?’ And then when we finally got the car up–and it’s got a few dings and a few dents. It’s got some mud on it. We’re going to have to do some work on it. They point out to everybody else and say: ‘Look what these guys did to your car!’ After we got it out of the ditch, and then they got the nerve to ask for the keys back. I don’t want to give them the keys back. They don’t know how to drive…. We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back.”

During the government shutdown in 2013, the president broke protocol and sent a partisan letter to government employees blaming the Republican controlled House of Representatives for the shutdown. He claimed that the Senate and the President have nothing to do with the government shutdown. At the time only the house was GOP controlled which is why they were the target, even though the Democratic party-controlled Senate was filibustering each and every GOP compromise.  Federal workers are not allowed to send partisan/political emails to other government workers using their government email accounts while they are on duty, but that didn’t stop Obama.

The above are  only a few of the many examples where this president took a hyper-partisan stance

Here’s the truth.  Since the first day he arrived on the national political stage this President has persistently spewed hateful comments about the GOP, the Tea Party, and anyone else who would dare to disagree with his policies.   It’s hard to come up with another Commander-in-Chief who has spoken out with such venom, and as often as Barack Obama.

Obama is correct, America has seen hyper-partisanship in the past seven years. But he is blind to the fact that it originates from the White House.