Obama began mixing it up with McCain on this day exactly two years ago. The subject of the dispute was ethics reform, and Obama outraged Senator Shortfuse by, shockingly, being too damn partisan about the subject.
Obama attended a meeting with McCain and senators committed to a bipartisan task force on ethics reform. McCain left the meeting convinced that Obama was open to working closely together, according to an aide.
But the next day, Obama wrote McCain that he preferred his own party's legislation to a task force and suggested McCain take another look at the Democratic caucus's Honest Leadership Act, which does not have a Republican cosponsor.
Wrote Obama: "I know you have expressed an interest in creating a task force to further study and discuss these matters, but I and others in the Democratic Caucus believe the more effective and timely course is to allow the committees of jurisdiction to roll up their sleeves and get to work[.]"
The blockhead responded with some major whining:
"When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership's preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter. ... I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in political to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won't make the same mistake again."
And who can forget the smackdown Obama applied to McCain and Willard over the Iraq funding issue. Ouch!
Obama has also tangled with McCain's flunkies in the Senate. Again acting out of hyperpartisanship, he goaded Lindsey Graham into throwing a temper tantrum on the floor of the Senate.
Graham: When you're out there on the campaign trail, you're trying to bring us all together. You're trying to make America better. 'Why can't we work together?' This is why we can't work together. Because, some people, when it comes to the tough decisions, back away because when you talk about bipartisanship, some Americans, on the left and the right, consider it heresy.
Almost immediately, the two men continued the argument in a hall just outside the chamber. "They were going at it," said Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla. "We could hear them inside."
In separate interviews later, Graham said, "I wanted to go outside" to impress upon Obama the danger he was causing for a bill he supposedly supported. "I said, 'I'm very disappointed in you,'" he said, adding: "I like the fellow."
Obama said Graham was overstating the potential impact of "a mild amendment."
"It's a matter of too much coffee and people being on the floor too long," he said.
And today, Obama spanked McCain once again.
"There was a time when some Republicans like John McCain agreed with me," Obama said, of his calls to roll back Bush’s temporary tax cuts for the richest Americans instead of making those tax cuts permanent.
"There was a time when Senator McCain courageously defied the fiscal madness of massive tax cuts for the wealthy in the midst of a costly war," Obama said. "That was before he started running for the Republican nomination and fell in line."
During last night’s CNN debate in Los Angeles, Obama also looked past the Democratic nomination fight to take aim at McCain. At one point, he observed that, "Somewhere along the line, the Straight Talk Express lost some wheels."
For the record, here's what we can expect from Hillary Clinton.
And then he painted this scene: "She and John McCain are very close," he said. "They always laugh that if they wound up being the nominees of their party, it would be the most civilized election in American history and they're afraid they'd put the voters to sleep because they like and respect each other."
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