Krauthammer To Hannity: Obama Has Successfully Created ‘An Internal Civil War’ Within The GOP (VIDEO)

December 27th, 2012 Sean Hannity brought Charles Krauthammer on his show tonight to discuss President Obama‘s role in the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations. Both Hannity and Krauthammer agreed that Obama has been to hardline in trying to negotiate with Republicans, but Krauthammer gave the president some credit for managing to effectively tear the GOP in half over whether or not they can compromise with Obama on raising tax rates. RELATED: Exasperated Candy Crowley Asks: Why Isn’t Obama ‘Dealing With Boehner?’ Hannity sardonically celebrated Obama’s return from his Hawaiian vacation to deal with the impending cliff. Krauthammer admitted he doesn’t “begrudge [Obama] his holiday,” but he does have an issue with how the president has been dealing with the fiscal cliff negotiations. He did, however, give Obama his due credit for a stunning accomplishment amidst the ongoing talks. “He’s been using this, and I must say with great skill–-and ruthless skill and success–to fracture and basically shatter the Republican opposition… His objective from the very beginning was to break the will of the Republicans in the House, and to create an internal civil war. And he’s done that.” Krauthammer said Obama has been pushing the GOP since winning reelection to focus on raising tax rates because he knew it would be a sore subject between differing factions of his Republican opposition, and his interest in scoring a partisan political victory outweighs his desire to seriously deal with the national debt. Hannity wondered if Obama was in more serious danger of tarnishing his legacy than the Republicans. Krauthammer maintained that the GOP had more room to negotiate than they thought, and while initially they may get the blame for the consequences of going over the cliff, in the long run it will be part of Obama’s legacy and “he will be remembered as a failed president.” Hannity cited this as just the latest example of Obama “clinging to this radical ideology of his,” but wondered if the GOP will just take any deal Obama offers up because “they’re scared to death.” Krauthammer said both sides have mandates of their own, and whether or not Obama likes it, he’s going to need to cave if he wants to avoid going off the cliff, or at least stem its most economically damaging consequences. Watch the video below, courtesy of Fox News:

http%3A//www.mediaite.com/tv/krauthammer-to-hannity-obama-has-successfully-created-an-internal-civil-war-within-the-gop/



• Sweet move, if that was the case. I think a room of clowns will eventually turn on each other without outside intervention.

• So true, R1.

• Created: no Took full advantage of internecine discord: yes Battle.War.Obama

  Sun%20Tzu

• Keep fucking that chicken guys. The public is already blaming the Republicans for the failure of the negotiations and will continue to do so, all the way through 2014.

• Too soon to tell, R4

• r5 posting from 2008.

• Is this what Krauthammer did when Obama won?

  http://www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DK5le9sYdYkM

• It will be completely evident that the failings of Congress to avoid an outright assault on Americans' paychecks and sense of fiscal security are the Republicans' fault. They will be further marked as radical nuts who don't care about the people. Good. But for our sakes, they'd better get their idiot asses in gear.

• I wish there was an accuracy index for these pundits. What they say prophesize would then be counted on a scale - you'd THEN see how actually knows anything. Most Republican pundits would score less than 20 on a 100 pt scale.

  Blah

• Republicans will blame Obama for [italic]anything[/italic], won't they?

• The fact that Krauthammer is admitting that there is any sort of serious infighting or dissent within the GOP indicates to me that the party really may be suffering tremendous internal pressures or infighting. The "oh, it's Obama's fault" is just the usual FOX window dressing.

• Off topic: Sean Hannity is the nastiest person on TV or radio. I can roll with num-nuts Rush or that Hannity turd but Hannity is just pure hate and evil.

• Obama is playing chess while everyone else plays checkers.

• RELATED: Exasperated Candy Crowley Asks: Why Isn’t the Cafeteria Serving Extra Mayo?

  Barbara%20Starr

• I thought the Republican'ts were going to do everything they could to make Obama UNsuccessful?

• WHY is S E Cupp AWOL???

• Yes, R10, they will. The reality is that there's a multipart chasm in the GOP: between fiscal and social conservatives, and between moderates and extremists. This chasm started well before Obama took office; it dates back to the last two years of the Bush administration, in fact. R3 is completely correct that Obama took advantage of this internecine conflict, albeit late (he could've done so much earlier than now), but its existence is entirely the GOP's own fault. The good news is that the chasms aren't going anywhere, and that there's no way the party will come together by the 2016 election -- quite the opposite is likely, in fact. More and more Repug politicians will see the error of their ways and move towards the middle ground once more, understanding full well that their Tea Party-influenced right-wing stances on "no new taxes, EVAH" and immigration and whatnot have alienated independents and moderate Republican voters. OTOH the extremists will only get *more* extreme, and continue pushing their absurd agenda that has their True Believers swallowing malarkey like Obama is a Kenyan imperalist communist, etc.

• It's The Smoke Party vs The Mirrors Party. The outcome? [italic]You[/italic] lose!