Washington Post: quit now for greatness!

Conservatives, Republicans, libertarians (both big-L and small-l): please don’t take this the wrong way. Your opinions are important to me. I’d hate to think that you think that I want President Obama (circa 2011) to become anything other than former President Obama (circa 2013).

But. For two veteran political operatives to suggest that Obama should announce his retirement now, because it’ll make everybody nicer…

…they must be hallucinating. That, or they’re as naive as the MSM thinks bloggers are.

Or…well, they are veteran Democrat political operatives, for whom work would be far more plentiful, should Obama bow out, and another crowded primary ensue.

The upshot:

Obama has the opportunity to seize the high ground and the imagination of the nation once again, and to galvanize the public for the hard decisions that must be made. The only way he can do so, though, is by putting national interests ahead of personal or political ones.

To that end, we believe Obama should announce immediately that he will not be a candidate for reelection in 2012.

In other words: don’t run again…for the good of the country! And, hey, we can all relate.

But then they go on:

If the president goes down the reelection road, we are guaranteed two years of political gridlock at a time when we can ill afford it. But by explicitly saying he will be a one-term president, Obama can deliver on his central campaign promise of 2008, draining the poison from our culture of polarization and ending the resentment and division that have eroded our national identity and common purpose.

How incredibly precious. We can avoid “political gridlock” and “our culture of polarization” simply by turning the President into a lame duck.

Again, I’m all for President Obama returning to community organizing, and doing it soon. Great. But: announcing that intention now is more likely to increase partisan rancor and polarization than to decrease it.

Or do they honestly believe partisanship and polarization lessen when the Big Chair looms empty?

Don’t take me wrong: holding the dark, dark specter of a second Obama term over the nation’s heads won’t reduce partisanship and gridlock, either. Of course not. But at least the Democrat side will have to show some baseline of solidarity. Standing behind their leader.

Take that threat away, and Democrat hopefuls will begin to grandstand. They’ll have to, to attract the attention a presidential run requires. And this, the Post thinks, will lend itself to “putting national interests ahead of personal or political ones?”

Please.

Posted by The TrogloPundit.

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