by Kevin Numerick

Created on: September 05, 2010   Last Updated: September 07, 2010

Does President Obama treat his political opponents fairly? The answer is absolutely yes. He started off his campaign for being the 44th president of the United States talking about bipartisanship and the need to end the bickering between parties. He has without a doubt attempted to fulfill that promise and continues to do so.

With health care legislation, President Obama attempted to draw the sides together by showing what they had in common. He even attempted to include multiple provisions that originated from the Republican Party to garner support and create a comprehensive, bipartisan bill. Unfortunately, the GOP refused to participate and through multiple attempts it was clear that the Republican Party as a whole was not going to support it.

President Obama has tried to re-implement nuclear power, which disturbed his base, but is strongly supported by most republicans as a viable and must-have source of energy production in the future. Not long after, he went even further and spoke of adding more off-shore drilling, which really went against his base of supporters. Regardless, the Republican Party still said no, accusing him of playing politics. Shortly after, the BP Deep Water Horizon event happened. President Obama is also a supporter of “Clean Coal Technology” which is certainly considered a bipartisan goal, though many Democrats disagree with it fiercely.

The president has taken virtually every reasonable approach at working with his opponents including having republicans in his cabinet. If offering a mix of ideas from both parties, including both parties in his internal cabinet, and having open televised dialogue is not giving his “opponents” a fair chance, then fair is a word that needs to be revised.

The problem is that we’re discussing “opposition” to begin with. Each party is not there to compete against each other, but to represent slightly different ideologies in an attempt to create laws that truly represent the people as a whole. Unfortunately, the polarization within Congress is starting to pull the country apart. Spreading dreadful misinformation does not help anyone; it only furthers the polarization across America and induces hate.

One side, the Republican Party, is refusing to support anything put in front of them since President Obama has been elected. Sadly, this hurts America more than it helps it. Even more unfortunate is that in leaked documents by Republican Party leaders in or around his victory in 2008, it was stated that their goal was to fight as hard they can to not let anything through congress, to vote no on everything. As stated, the party fell in line and has done an excellent job of slowing down and turning down every attempt to fix the major problems our nation faces today.

Though both parties have some blame when it comes to party bickering in congress, president Obama has made many attempts to work with both sides and it has only reinforced why the GOP is referred to as the “party of no.”

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