Doesn't He Mean, "A Country To Destroy"?

Barack Obama has adopted some hard-bitten, take-no-prisoners, divide-and-conquer tactics pretty early in the campaign season.  Normally the last weapons of a desperate man,  Peter Wehner comments on what these divisive maneuvers reveal about the president, and what it portends for his forthcoming drive for re-election:

This tactic is an important concession of sorts. Barack Obama has shown he can’t govern and won’t even try. But he does know how to campaign. It’s the one thing he seems to relish and has shown some skill at. The fact that Obama is campaigning in 2012 in precisely the opposite manner he portrayed himself in 2008 isn’t lost on anyone – including the RNC.

The president has gone from being a healer of the breach to the divider-in-chief. Hope and change has given way to slash-and-burn. On the campaign trail he’s now referring to Republicans as members of the “flat earth society” and the House GOP budget as an example of “Social Darwinism.” (If Obama is going to attack Republicans, at least he could be creatively vicious instead of banal and mean-spirited.) To have a president engage in these tactics with such relish, and to do so this early in the campaign cycle, will do significant damage to our political culture. But it’s clear to any detached observer that it doesn’t matter to Obama. After all, he has an election to win, power to keep, and an opponent to destroy.


C'mon, Peter, this man thinks bigger.  He's got a lot more than an opponent to destroy...