Earlier this week, Rolling Stone published an extensive interview with President Obama in which the commander in chief went after his Republican opponents with notable venom. The interview sadly confirms what many of us have long known: President Obama’s transformation from post-partisan healer to hyper-partisan attack dog is complete. Why has this happened? Certainly, even those most skeptical of President Obama in January 2009 would have been a little surprised to read an interview that drips with contempt for so many of the president’s fellow citizens. Was President Obama always like this, and just hid his partisan side very well during the campaign, or is this a new attitude?

I believe it’s new — at least since he became president.  My thinking is that Obama came into office with an idea in his head of what it means to be a conservative or Republican, and he thought he could work with such people. But his view of the right was not very well formed prior to taking office, and he has been genuinely surprised by GOP opposition.  In response, he has fallen back on the partisan Democratic worldview.