President Obama Has Plenty to Be Angry About

About Brad Bannon:

Brad Bannon is president of Bannon Communications Research, a political polling and consulting firm which helps labor unions, progressive issue groups, and Democratic candidates win public affairs and political campaigns.

So Mitt Romney thinks Barack Obama is angry. That is the only thing that Romney is right about. Even a blind hog finds an acorn every once in awhile.

Damned straight the president is angry. He's angry that the GOP has put party before principle and automatically opposed anything he has tried to do to fix the economy. If Obama proposed making Mother's Day an official federal holiday to honor the great contribution that mothers make to the nation, Republicans would oppose the measure and claim the president was just trying to exploit the gender gap.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky set the tone very early when he said that his number one priority was to deny Obama a second term. The GOP leader could have said creating jobs or reducing the federal budget deficit was his priority but McConnell clearly had bigger political fish to fry. The GOP-controlled House of Representatives never even bothered to vote on the president's American Jobs Act, which would have put hundreds of thousands of unemployed Americans back to work.

[See a collection of political cartoons on the 2012 campaign.]

And Romney has a nerve to say that Obama will do anything to stay in power. At every turn in his political career, the GOP presidential nominee has cast principle aside in order to succeed politically. When he ran against Sen. Edward Kennedy, Romney tried to run to the left of the incumbent. As governor, he signed a comprehensive health reform law with a mandatory insurance purchase requirement that became the prototype for Obamacare. Once Romney caught Potomac Fever, he became a born again conservative so he could win the Party of Tea nomination. In Doonesbury, Gary Trudeau joked that George H.W. Bush had put his manhood in a blind trust to run with Ronald Reagan. Romney has done the same thing in his fevered rush to political power.

It's about time Barack Obama got angry. The president is angry because he cares about this country. The only thing Romney cares about is winning the presidency.

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