Rhetoric, reality, and radicalism

NYT, 25 March 2008: "At the core of Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is a promise that he can transcend the starkly red-and-blue politics of the last 15 years, end the partisan and ideological wars and build a new governing majority.

"To achieve the change the country wants, he says, 'we need a leader who can finally move beyond the divisive politics of Washington and bring Democrats, independents and Republicans together to get things done.'"

In 2011, the president's proposed budget lost 97-0 in the Senate (controlled at the time by Democrats).

In 2012, the president's proposed budget lost 414-0 in the House. Not a single Democrat voted for it.

In the past two years, House Republican Budget Committee Chair, Paul Ryan (R-WI), has passed a budget in the House, and it received 40 votes in the Senate (i.e., 40 more votes than the president's plan).

And President Obama has the audacity to call the Ryan budget "radical?"