Second Take: Obama’s GOP Gene

Reuters.

On the announcement that Obama is setting his post-mid-term course by throwing in with the GOP, I was interested in looking again at this shot from January 7, 2009 of President-Elect Obama visiting the White House just after his election.

In the early days, I was convinced that Obama’s passion for crossing the aisle was mostly strategic. I don’t believe that anymore.  Just like Obama is the only one with his hands joined, I now believe he is emotionally incapable of creating or perpetuating fractures between any group at a table, or having anybody who matters mad at him for long.

If the fact the boys on the right (from their orientation) are all wearing blue ties and the guys on the left are both red is just a funny coincidence, the sense it creates of 41, 43 and 44 being fraternity brothers is not. Looking back, Obama’s deference to Pappy, and not placing himself in between Clinton and Bush was probably an early telegraph of that pacification instinct.