Political divide is stronger than ever

I'm just a little confused.

I was under the impression that our President was the one at long last to usher in a new era of postpartisan, postracial America. That was the gamble when we elected the most inexperienced person in history to the highest office in the land.

He promised hope and change, but we were left to each define that catchy campaign slogan. So some saw great sea-change in those words while others were a tad bit more cautious.

Well, as you can readily see, postpartisan and postracial both gave way rapidly to the political realities of the Beltway.

In the areas of postpartisan and postracial, I'd venture a guess that we as a nation have never been so fragmented or divided. OK, I'll give you the Civil War as an era that witnessed a greater divide. But not much beyond that.

As a college kid on a university campus during the '60s, I witnessed a widening gap over the Vietnam War. Turmoil and chaos were commonplace. And the camps were easily identified and equally zealous in their views on that controversial conflict.

At about the same time, there was a wide divide on the racial changes of the day. Granted, the times were different in so many ways, but the racial question -- especially on a southern college campus -- was evident. And it too was vocal.

But today's political and social divide is far greater than those past struggles. The political landscape illustrates a fairly even divide along philosophical lines that hampers progress, regardless of how you define that progress.

This week's struggle over the budget is a prime illustration. The Democrats and Republicans can't even agree on how much each side wants to cut from the budget. The Dems argue they have already cut nearly $50 billion, and the GOP counters that that number is grossly inflated.

Postpartisan?

The Dems are already trying to get Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from the expected high court decision on ObamaCare because of some perceived conflict. Now that is partisan politics at its best!

And our postracial administration abandons a case against the New Black Panthers for voter intimidation, to the chagrin of law enforcement officials involved in the case from the beginning. Postracial apparently means to ignore something and surely it will simply go away.

There is limited gray area on this administration. You either agree in lock-step with this new liberal direction or you disagree.

It will be difficult to run on the same hope and change malarkey next time with the record of the past four years.