We're all talking about Republicans on the Hill and their manifold failures. So here are some things President Obama didn't do during the fiscal cliff impasse and some conjecture as to why.


President Obama speaking at the White House on Dec. 31 regarding budget negotiations with Congress. Associated Press






Mr. Obama's supporters always give him an out by saying, "But the president can't work with them, they made it clear from the beginning their agenda was to do him in." That's true enough. But it's true with every American president now—the other side is always trying to do him in, or at least the other side's big mouths are always braying they'll take him down. They tried to capsize Clinton, they tried to do in Reagan, calling him an amiable dunce and vowing to defeat his wicked ideology.


Peggy Noonan's Blog

Daily declarations from the Wall Street Journal columnist.

A lot of the president's staffers were new to national politics when they came in, and they seem to have concluded that the partisan bitterness they faced was unique to him, and uniquely sinister. It's just politics, or the ugly way we do politics now.






Maybe he thinks bipartisan progress raises the Republicans almost to his level, and he doesn't want to do that. They're partisan hacks, they're not big like him. Let them flail.

This, however, is true: The great presidents are always in the end uniters, not dividers. They keep it together and keep it going. And people remember them fondly for that.

In the short term, Mr. Obama has won. The Republicans look bad. John Boehner looks bad, though to many in Washington he's a sympathetic figure because they know how much he wanted a historic agreement on the great issue of his time. Some say he would have been happy to crown his career with it, and if that meant losing a job, well, a short-term loss is worth a long-term crown. Mr. Obama couldn't even make a deal with a man like that, even when it would have made the president look good.


We take political pleasure where we can these days, so we'll end with the fact that 20 women were sworn into the U.S. Senate Thursday, up from the previous record of 17. In an interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, they spoke of the difference they feel they make. Susan Collins (R., Maine) said that "with all due deference to our male colleagues . . . women's styles tend to be more collaborative." Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) said women in politics are "less confrontational." Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) said they are more supportive of each other. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) suggested women have less "ego." Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.) said they're effective because "we're less on testosterone."

It was refreshing to see so much agreement. It was clear they saw their presence as to some degree an antidote to the roughness and pointless ego of the Senate. To me they seemed an antidote to the current White House.