BARACK MILHOUS NIXON

Wow.

In a Washington Post editorial this past Saturday, two prominent Democratic pollsters wrote that President Obama, who promised a new, post-partisan era during his campaign, has been the most bitterly divisive and partisan President since Richard Nixon. The authors then spell out the parallels between Presidents Obama and Nixon.

Making America Safe for Partisans.

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President Obama has used the office of the President to make wildly false and partisan attacks against political enemies. Even the New York Times has noted the lack of evidence to back up the White House claims that Rove and others have been funneling illegal foreign money to Republican candidates.

And the President's troublingly flaccid grip on the truth is not limited to false accusations against Karl Rove, but extends to major policy initiatives:

Obama is walking a knife's edge. He has said that the 3.5 million "shovel-ready jobs" he had referred to as justification for the passage of the stimulus bill didn't exist - throwing all the Democratic incumbents who had defended the stimulus in their campaigns under the proverbial bus.

Although he said, as part of his effort to enact health-care reform, that the health-care mandates were not taxes, now his administration acknowledges in court papers that they are, in fact, taxes.

The editorial makes sobering reading. It is more sobering when you read the warning these same two pollsters made in March of this year about the consequences of pushing an extremely unpopular health care bill through Congress.

When influential members of the President's own party begin denouncing the President's behavior in Washington Post editorials, one is hard pressed to think of any word to describe the situation but "Nixonian."

I wonder what the remaining Dems in Congress will say about the President Wednesday. My prediction: not pretty.

Perhaps the phrase "not pretty" is understated. Maybe "coyote ugly" would be more accurate.