Halperin: Obama’s Sunday Speech ‘Not Good For the Country,’ ‘Nothing New’

Bloomberg Politics Managing Editor Mark Halperin stated President Obama’s Sunday speech was “not good for the country” and “nothing new, and no sense of bipartisanship” on Monday’s broadcast of NBC’s “Today.”

Halperin said he was “surprised” that the president didn’t offer anything new, and “I’m also surprised that had he didn’t do a good enough job, or maybe any job of reaching out to Republicans. This is a time when we need national unity. We’re in the middle of a presidential campaign. He’s leaving office in a little over a year. The reaction from Republicans, as Andrea said, uniformly bad, not just the presidential candidates, but the Capitol Hill leaders. I think nothing new, and no sense of bipartisanship, not good for the country.

He added, “when the president comes out and gives a speech, and then it becomes just politics, it becomes for the chattering class, I think that’s a failure of leadership of both parties, but the president’s got the primary responsibility now, and you would like a world, like after 9/11, where the president addresses the country, says we’re in crisis, and Republicans say, we’re going to put partisanship aside for a moment and work with him. That’s not what we’re seeing.”

Halperin concluded, “This isn’t a business as usual moment, and too much of what he’s done, including last night, even using the Oval Office, was business as usual. A repeating basically, what he thinks the right policy is, with nothing new, and no sense of urgency, which is what a lot of Americans are feeling.”

(h/t Washington Free Beacon)

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