Democratic base tired of being shunned by Obama

James Witherspoon, Las Vegas

Monday, July 12, 2010 | 2:03 a.m.

Notice how the Republican leaders distanced themselves from Michael Steele when he made the comment about the war in Afghanistan being President Barack Obama’s war? Has it occurred to the president that maybe they felt betrayed because Steele leaked a very important part of the Republicans’ future playbook to hang the Afghanistan albatross on Obama?

Has it dawned on Obama yet that he is going to pay a price within his own party for continuing to play up to the Republicans for their phony bipartisanship? The Republicans know the American people are tired of these wars and also tired of Obama’s support for them.

When George W. Bush was in office the deficit was the last thing on their minds when they spent the money. Now they are voting with Obama to spend billions on these wars, then in the same breath complaining about the deficit. They know the president could create millions of jobs with that money if it was spent in America, on Americans.

Has Obama noticed that he is slipping in the polls? Guess what? Those aren’t Republicans defecting from him (they weren’t going to vote for him anyway); those are Democrats defecting because they’re tired of Obama sucking up to the very people who want him out of office. Is he listening?

We the people voted the Republicans out of power for a reason, and that reason was not to replace them with a Democrat/Republican leader.

Maybe Obama should take a page from the Republican playbook — you’re either with us (the people who voted for you) or against us. You can’t have it both ways.