Obama Thanks Republican Stimulus Dealmakers for Their Patriotism

President Barack Obama called Republican Senators Arlen Specter, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe after the Senate reached a tentative deal on his proposed economic stimulus package Friday night and thanked the Senators for their patriotism in helping to broker the deal. The remark is troubling because it raises the question of whether the president believes that those Republicans who oppose the stimulus plan on philosophical grounds, the other 38 members of the Senate and every Republican member of the House, are un-patriotic. The sentiment also recalls a controversy from the presidential campaign that the Obama Administration would probably rather not have resurface.

During the campaign, Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden said that as president, Barack Obama would "take money [from the rich] and put it back in the pockets of middle-class people." He went on to encourage the wealthy whose taxes would go up with the following.

"It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."

The remark caused a firestorm of controversy in the campaign, which Obama never really addressed. Now his remark about the stimulus package could become another in a series of self-inflicted wounds early in his presidency.

During the Bush Administration, liberals and Democrats complained bitterly that opposing viewpoints, especially on the war on terror, were demonized. They decried Republicans' criticism that they perceived as challenges to their patriotism. Obama himself bristled at suggestions that he was not patriotic enough due to his refusal to wear an American flag lapel pin and his failure to hold his hand over his heart during the national anthem at a campaign stop. Now that Obama is in power, however, he is apparently comfortable deciding who is patriotic and who is not based on their support for his policies.