In a recent episode of “The Colbert Report” Stephen Colbert issued the Republicans a warning. “Watch out,” he said, “or Obama is going to get so bipartisan on your ass you won’t know what helped you.”

Colbert was referring to a statement President Obama made during his recent health care speech to Congress, where he assured Republicans that he would hear their propositions and work with them to provide a good health care bill. This is not a new trend in Obama’s rhetoric.

Throughout his election campaign, he constantly referred to his desire to “change the tone in Washington”. For some time, some believed that Obama would be able to bridge the divide between both parties and create a common ground where Republicans and Democrats alike could meet and work together to improve the country.

That quickly proved to be a silly dream. Conservative opposition against Obama’s policies soon hardened, and all major legislations in Congress have been a battleground between both parties. Now comes the health care debate, and the President is once again trying to usher in major reform while vying for the support of prominent Republican leaders.

Every attempt has proved to be a bitter failure, and Republican opposition has only grown stronger and more effective over time. Problem is, there seems to be no room for compromise, no middle ground where both sides can seemingly agree on. Instead, the debate has only bred contempt and negativity.

Last week, Senator Baucus of Montana issued his own health care proposal. The plan offers no public option; it is deficit-neutral and the Congressional Budget Office believes that will insure 29 million new people. Yet the plan was still only greeted with ambivalence from Republicans, and thus far no Republican congressman has offered his or her support for the plan.

The Republican strategy is clear: Any plan that has the Democrats’ finger prints on it has to be opposed, and when Health Care legislation fails, Republicans will see the benefits in the 2010 mid-term election. If most agree that health care reform is essential, then that sort of stubborn obstruction is only putting Americans at risk.

Obama’s bipartisan effort was a noble, and perhaps an unrealistic, cause at first, but to continue down this path can eventually lead to a dead bill. There are enough Democrats in both the House and Senate to push a Bill through.

Some say that leaving Republicans out of the debate is a costly political mistake, and it sets an ugly precedent for future debates. Yet it was the Republican’s own inability to offer any solutions or compromises that created this situation. It’s a shame because it’s possible some Republicans had good ideas, but at this point they seemed more concerned with gaining seats in Congress by using obstructionism than making a better bill.

In the most poignant part of his health care speech to Congress, Obama declared that he “wasn’t the first President to take up this cause, but [he] was determined to be the last.”
If this is the case, then perhaps it’s time for Obama to drop his effort to change the tone in Washington, and start focusing on changing the direction of America.