Is barack obama post-partisan?

President Obama launched his presidency by trying to “unite the country,” said _National Review Online_ in an editorial, with a call to move beyond the “stale political arguments” and

“worn-out dogmas” of the past. But it’s hard to buy the rhetoric when it’s clear that he wants to change conservatives but doesn’t “consider the dogmas of liberalism worn out.” Obamas'

break with the conservative past may be more stark, said E.J. Dionne in _The Washington Post_. When he said the size of government is irrelevant and that what matters is "whether it

works," he was quietly "overturning the Reagan revolution." But by invoking traditional values as a means to progressive ends, he essentially asked liberals to give their

"stale arguments" a rest, too. It’s hard to deny the “inclusiveness”, said Nicholas Kristof in _The New York Times_, in an address that celebrated an American patchwork of

Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and non-believers. Obama’s “effort to tug people into his big tent" marks a change from George W. Bush's "years of governing from an ideological

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Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox. A serious reading of Obama's speech, said Robert Ehrlich in _The Washington Post_, "makes clear that part of

the moderate, post-partisan, post-ideological Obama did indeed come through." But so did a nod to "class-warfare rhetoric" and the "desire to reconfigure the role of

government and markets in our country." The left's debate with red-staters is still on. A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from

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