Olympia Snowe is retiring from the Senate to become the principal of DC, so she’s handing out grades. Obama gets an almost-F in bipartisanship, because she met with him fewer times than any other President since she came to town in 1976. She hasn’t yet released his grade in deportment, gym or home ec, but I’m sure the DC press will be just as eager to report more irrelevant musings of someone whose enthusiasm for bipartisanship wasn’t quite strong enough for her to engage in the civil, reasonable centrist discourse of a Tea Party primary challenge.
(h/t the fugitive uterus)
Breezeblock
I enjoyed the snarkasm in the this post. I give it a “like”.
RosiesDad
I think her memory is awfully short. She only need look back on the first 18-24 months of the Obama presidency to see where the president reached out to try to govern by consensus and where the Republican response was, “It’s our way or the highway.”
Her party has gone insane. It’s not Obama’s fault that he doesn’t have a therapy to drag them back to sanity.
SenyorDave
Maybe Obama stopped meeting with the Republicans because he realized it was A WASTE OF FUCKING TIME! He could use that time to more productive things like spend time with his kids or get briefings from advisors or even watch old reruns of I Love Lucy.
IMO it’s to his credit that he realized the GOP was going to try to play him for his entire term, and tried to deal with them as little as possible.
Snowe might seem reasonable, but she’s just another enabler.
Enlightened Liberal
If only Obama gave in to everything the radical minority party wanted, she would be able to give Obama a D-! It’s really his fault you know. Also too, both sides do it.
Carl Nyberg
I’m pretty sure the President of the United States has a staff.
I’m pretty sure this staff talks to U.S. Senators and their staffs.
I’m pretty sure that these people are competent. If a Senator is willing to make a deal the information gets conveyed to the President’s chief of staff.
I’m pretty sure there are a number of things Obama would have liked to accomplish, but they were blocked by Senate Republicans, often by one to three votes.
I’m pretty sure that if the Snowe Queen was willing to endure the wrath of Republicans, Obama would have been happy to meet with her and get her vote.
So, it seems like the Snowe Queen’s unwillingness to take heat from the GOP is the proximate cause of her problem, not Obama’s unwillingness to meet with her.
chopper
ever the republican, snowe just can’t get it in her head that her compatriots were the ones keeping anything bipartisan from happening on the hill.
republicanism is a helluva drug.
terraformer
Well, of course. Snowe and any other Republican leaving office has to sing the approved tune or no cushy sinecure.
This was as predictable as conservative intransigence. Oh wait…
slippy
Man, fuck what Snowe says. She reassigned herself to sit at the kids’ table years ago. FUCK WHAT SHE SAYS.
Ash Can
Snowe must just be laying the groundwork for announcing an Americans Elect gig. Someone should tell her that she’s just making an ass of herself on her way to becoming a forgotten nobody at a shitcan-bound Brand X think tank — on the other hand, let her figure that out on her own.
amk
This from a woman who voted lockstep with her side in almost all issues since 2008.
Carnacki
I give Snowe an F on standing up to the Teabaggers and Karl Roves of her party and an Incomplete for Voting Her Conscience on issues she spoke up for at one time or another but ended up voting as her party bosses told her most of the time.
fasteddie9318
I always thought that if the Sheriff had just invited President Snowe over to the ”White” House for some Rocky Road ice cream and Twilight marathons, all the unpleasantness of the past few years could have been avoided. DAMN YOU FOR FAILING US PRESIDENT BLACKIE!
geg6
Fuck this dumb beyotch, sideways. Gawd, I hate her ugly old pinched face and her stupid, stupid, stupid whining about bipartisanship. I detest this hag even more than I could ever have thought possible ten years ago. But she and that other dimwit from Maine get to me in a big way. One for the mere fact that these detestable ciphers are two of the most powerful women in the country. They make me ashamed to even BE a woman. And second, they are two of the most powerful women in the country, which means that two of the stupidest people on the planet wield enormous power over my life.
Bludger
An F- from Olympia Snowe is an A+ in my book.
Satanicpanic
Says the lady who voted with Republican leadership 99% of the time.
Bludger
An F- from Olympia Snowe is an A+ in my book.
Jack
Did Snowe forget that back in 2009, Obama was trying to do just about anything to get her vote on the health care bill? He offered her pretty much whatever she asked for, and she still voted against it. Is it any wonder why they haven’t spoken in two years?
d0n camillo
Looks like Olympia Snowe retired so that she can spend more time with her ego.
kindness
Olympia Snowe….egg sucker extraordinaire.
MomSense
Americans Elect…
...now I try to be amused
@d0n camillo:
HA! Snowe and Gingrich can commiserate on their lack of quality time with the POTUS.
sublime33
Judge the quality of a person by the quality of their critics and enemies. If Mzz Snowe thinks Obama did a rotten job reaching out to the other side, I view that as a compliment.
SenyorDave
They make me ashamed to even BE a woman
I’m a man, and on my side we’ve got such luminaries as Santorum, Gingrich, Cheney (what a waste of a heart), Pat Robertson, and pretty much all the asshole politicians in the US prior to 1990. I’m not proud to say this, but I think we have you beat.
ksmiami
There are no good Republicans. Just remember that. They are all sociopaths or insane or some combination of both. Carry on
CT Voter
Americans Elect, baby! Snowe/Boren. Wait, Boren/Snowe sounds MUCH better.
Barbara
This is on the same par as Catholic bishops being angry because Obama hasn’t met their “accommodation” demands on the coverage of contraception by employer provided health plans. Dear Olympia, there is no reason for anyone let alone the President of the United States to waste time meeting with someone who so evidently is not acting in good faith, and I say, thank heaven we have a president who understands that “government” is about more than Olympia Snowe or any senator or bishop. When was the last time, or maybe even the first time, you actually did anything that showed courage or commitment to a larger principle than your re-election? Shorter: You exude mediocrity from every pore. Get over yourself.
MomSense
Snowe/Baye or Baye/Snowe?
Cacti
Dear soon to be ex-Senator Snowe,
You have served 34 years in the US House and Senate. Your signature accomplishment was being liked by the beltway press.
In 50 years, no one will remember you.
You failed.
XOXO
Cacti
Scott de B.
So Clinton served two terms, and you have a bunch of Republican Presidents — is it that surprising that Obama would have met with Snowe fewer times? The only president comparable with Obama at this point in his presidency would be Carter, and I somehow feel that ol’ Jimmy didn’t really give that much one-on-one time to a junior Republican Senator from Maine.
Ben Cisco
Yes, Olympia, he didn’t let you play the role of the POTUS.
.
There’s a reason for that…
danimal
I don’t think she liked being on the knife’s edge at all times and I’m sure her life would have been so much simpler if Obama caved to the GOP demands.
But she was and he didn’t, so Obama gets an F for failing Olympia Snowe.
Boo hoo.
Linda Featheringill
Ah, another Republican complaining because they haven’t gotten enough attention from Obama.
A little bit of Obama’s undivided attention may be very good for what ails you but you know, the man is busy. Unfortunately.
shortstop
@danimal: A perfect summation of the circumstances.
the Conster (f/k/a Cat Lady)
Didn’t she take a turn as president for a day during the ACA fight? Every single Senator looks in the mirror every day and sees themselves on Mt. Rushmore, and Snowe’s one day in the media glare gave her that tantalizing taste of what it must be like to be that guy. The near skinny guy with the big ears and funny name cut in line, and that’s why he got marked down. They’re all still in fucking junior high.
piratedan
I’d tell her to go and fuck off, but then that would mean that she would have to drop the aspirin that currently resides between her knees.
El Cid
O/T, but stacking solar cells in 3D configurations might provide anything from double to twenty times the power yield for the same technologies, particularly in less favorable climates, and in particular small surface areas such as building tops rather than expansive sunny plains.
And for those of you who remember that spate of mistaken articles about the kid who invented this for the science fair project:
JWL
Snowe is ticked because the overwhelming response to her retirement was, “don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out”.
Brachiator
Although her grades are BS, I understand some of this. Washington is like a high school clique, but with lobbyists and the military industrial complex.
__
People criticize Obama’s negotiating skills. But they expect him to simply fight the GOP.
__
But the most skilled politicians, from LBJ to Vito Genovese, realized that even your enemies can be opportunities, if you manipulate them to your advantage.
__
Clearly, Olympia was hoping for a snow job.
__
.
danielx
Olympia Snowe should stroll right out of her office and take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. As far as I can tell, her idea of bipartisanship would have been for Obama to act like the election was an endorsement of Republican policies.
brantl
Snowe can eat a bag of salted dicks, she never showed any backbone, EVER.
Triassic Sands
I give President Snowe an “F,” as in “F you, Snowe.”
Has she thought about leaving her party? No, of course not, since she can, with a clear conscience support the leadership of the GOP who have made their universal hostility to Obama clear and then claim that it is Obama who has failed to reach out to her and other Republicans.
Sorry, Olympia, you get an “F” for intelligence, too.
Ruckus
@SenyorDave:
I have to agree. The evidence really does show that men can be bigger assholes. Unfortunately there are women who are trying to level the field. And succeeding, Snowe, Bachman, Palin…
__
Brings up a question, does politics bring out the asshole in humans? And if so is it just unusual when a politician is not an asshole? Or is it just that I’m so used to conservatives being complete, total, fucking assholes that they taint the concept of politics? And assholes.
Arclite
What a f#cking c#nt. Obama bent over backwards for the Repubs even when he had majorities in both houses and they told him to F#ck himself. She can go to hell.
mfasano
Maybe she is applying for wingnut wellfare
rikyrah
this is why I said good riddance when she announced her retirement.
Sir Nose'D
Maybe if the class got a rubric in 2009 and expectations were made more explicit, he might have earned a higher grade?