| Obama's Inaugural Address Jan 23rd 2013, 12:07 For anyone who is unaware of what he said, here it is: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video...-full-18274078 Now we see some reactions to it. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/23/us...s.html?hp&_r=0 Quote:
President Obama's aggressive Inaugural Address on Monday presented Congressional Republicans with a stark choice over the next two years: accommodate the president's agenda on immigration, guns, energy and social programs and hope to take the liberal edge off issues dictated by the White House, or dig in as the last bulwark against a re-elected Democratic president and accept the political risks of that hard-line stance
As Mr. Obama's second term begins, Republican leaders appear ready to accede at least in the short term on matters like increasing the debt limit.
Their decision shows that even among some staunch conservatives, Mr. Obama's inauguration could be ushering in a more pragmatic tone — if not necessarily a shift in beliefs. From the stimulus to the health care law to showdowns over taxes and spending, Republicans have often found that their uncompromising stands simply left them on the sidelines, unable to have an impact on legislation and unable to alter it much once it passed...
..."We're too outnumbered to govern, to set policy," said Representative John Fleming, a Louisiana Republican who has taken confrontational postures in the past. "But we can shape policy as the loyal opposition."
The new approach has already produced results. In proposing to hold off a debt limit showdown for three months in return for the Senate producing a budget, House Republicans essentially maneuvered Senate Democrats into agreeing to draw up a spending plan, something they have avoided for three years...
...For now, some Republicans concede that the party is standing on shaky ground as it girds for confrontation.
"The public is not behind us, and that's a real problem for our party," said Representative Justin Amash of Michigan, a Republican who has clashed with his party's leadership.
Newt Gingrich, the last Republican speaker to face a re-elected Democratic president, said that Republicans could not be seen as simply saying no to the president.
"You can take specific things he said that you agree with, emphasize those, and take the things you don't agree with and propose alternatives," he said.
| And here some criticism (of course): http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013...can-compromise Quote:
Republicans piled criticism on Barack Obama on Tuesday for what they described as an ideological inauguration speech, and accused him of failing to offer anything in the way of compromise...
...Republican Congressman Pete King said Obama could at least have made an effort to reach out to Republicans. "I thought he could've found some way to be more constructive," King told CNN, adding: "You can still make a case but do it in a more magnanimous way."
Senator John McCain, Obama's presidential opponent in 2008, rounded on Obama, saying it was the eighth inauguration speech he had heard and the first in which a president had failed to reach out his hand to the opposition party.
Obama devoted much of his first inaugural speech in 2009 offering to work with the Republicans but spent most of the intervening years in bitter, debilitating fights with them that have frequently left Washington paralysed. Obama, frustrated by that and emboldened by his election victory, used his inaugural speech to underline his new combative approach, one in which he outlined a progressive agenda that he hoped to push through in spite of Republican opposition.
Conservative commentators joined Republican members of Congress in criticising Obama. Stephen Hayes at the Weekly Standard accused him seeking "to move the country even further left".
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