Secondly, and more importantly, this little verbal skirmish was not between the Administration and any current officials. If anything, Obama’s rhetoric about current Congressional Republicans has been remarkably restrained. That’s where the potential for compromise lies, not with retired ex-officials.

Having said all that, I do agree with your basic original premise that Republicans are not much better than Democrats these days. In my opinion, if we keep seeing our choice as between just Democrats and Republicans, we’ll keep getting more of the same incompetence out of Washington. The Republicans f’ed it up for six years; now the Democrats are in power and getting it wrong. We need to reject the culture of partisanship. As a people we need to stop being gullible to this manipulation — Republicans manipulating conservatives, Democrats manipulating liberals. Inside the corridors of Congress, none of them is anyone’s friend.

Remember when he told critics to shut up and get out of the way?

Where are the centrist candidates these days???

As far as the government telling companies how much employees should earn, yes, that is what the “pay czar” does, and many top employees have quit companies that are subject to the “pay czar’s” demands and they’ve started to work for the competition.

I don’t believe all the hype about the last recession. Yes, it’s bad when people lose jobs and when industries fail, but this is not the first nor will it be the last recession that will soon be forgotten.