President Obama emboldens extreme Repbulicans

Dear Friends,

I have long thought that President Obama's unwillingness to actually take a clear position and strongly defend and argue for it to the American people as well as his incredibly bad negotiating style has lead to the ascendancy of the radical right wing Republicans.  Well apparently David Frum and Chris Hayes agree with me.

In case you are not familiar with David Frum, he is a Republican that worked for President George W. Bush.  Given that he is a Republican, he is a fairly rational one. He publishes the Frum Forum (here).   The following is from the transcript of "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" for July 5 (here).  Chris Hayes was sitting in as host.  They were talking about the debt ceiling.

DAVID FRUM, FRUMFORUM.COM: I am
astounded that we have come to where we are.
I mean, this is one of these August 1914
situations where we are heading towards a
crisis of unimaginable proportions, people like
me did not believe it would come to that, it
couldn‘t. You could see what lies from the
other side. And the behavior of the Republican
Party through all this has been pretty
shocking.

That said, it needs to be understood the
president‘s own weakness has invited a lot of
this problem. What he has done—the
Republican Party is a collectivity. It doesn‘t
have a single decision-maker when there isn‘t
a president. The White House has unity.

His weakness has empowered the most radical 
people in the Republican Party, and
disempowered people like John Cornyn, who
are deal makers. Now, John Cornyn has to
worry about primary challenges.

HAYES: Sure.

FRUM: And every time the president has
retreated in the way that he has, he‘s proven
John Cornyn‘s potentially primary challenger
right. So, John—and every time that—you ask
John Cornyn, OK, this is the best deal, this
deal that I‘m offering you today, this is the
best deal, there isn‘t a secret special price
behind this special price, this is my best deal—
you have to wonder what would my primary
challenger discover if there was a better deal,
what happens to me then?

HAYES: I think—despite my self, I kind of agree
with that. What do you think?

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal