Obama's Conciliatory Approach to Republicans

Although I thought Obama's speech last week at the Democratic National Convention was excellent, I must admit I was surprised by it.  I fully expected the President to not only attack Donald Trump, but to also attack Republicans for allowing someone like Trump to seize control of their party.  I thought Obama would say something like, "Look Republicans, you can blame Trump all you want for being a dick, but all the GOP horseshit these past eight year is what actually created this monster."

But Obama did not go there, at least not really.  Instead, he said stuff like this:

"Look, we Democrats have always had plenty of differences with the Republican Party, and there’s nothing wrong with that; it’s precisely this contest of ideas that pushes our country forward. But what we heard in Cleveland last week wasn’t particularly Republican – and it sure wasn’t conservative."

This approach surprised me because, in letting the GOP off the hook for creating the conditions that allowed Trump's rise to power, Obama made it harder for Democrats to argue that the voters should punish Republicans all the way down the ballot for their Donald Debacle.  The President's approach reminds me of the Parable of the Prodigal Son in that Obama is saying to the GOP, "You were lost, but this is a chance to find yourself again."

Well, the President just took that approach one step further:

President Obama declared Donald Trump unfit for office on Tuesday, and called on Republicans to distance themselves from their party's presidential nominee.

"Yes, I think the Republican nominee is unfit to serve as president," Obama said Tuesday at a press conference with the prime minister of Singapore. "I said so last week, and he keeps on proving it." "The notion that he would attack a Gold Star family that has made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country, the fact that he doesn’t appear to have basic knowledge around critical issues in Europe, in the Middle East, in Asia, means that he's woefully unprepared to do this job."

What Obama is doing is certainly presidential -- he's putting country ahead of politics.  If I was in his shoes, I would be far less forgiving.

UPDATE:  It just occurred to me that Obama may be playing a bit of a political game here.  Perhaps he is concerned that the GOP might be on the verge of giving up on Trump, something that the President really doesn't want even though he is asking Republicans to do exactly that.  Obama might be thinking that even though Republicans really don't like Trump, they hate him (Obama) more than anything else in the world and would never do anything that he asked, even if what Obama was asking would be helpful to the GOP in the long run.

I think it is entirely possible that Obama might also be giving Republicans one more chance to repudiate Trump before he launches an epic attack on the GOP for creating the conditions that allowed Trump to rise in the first place.