"A War of Nerves"

"Obama’s promise was that he would try to end this culture war. My view is that—to great dismay among his own partisan base—he has largely fulfilled that promise. He went to dinner with conservative journalists before he schmoozed the liberal ones; he spent more time on Capitol Hill with Republicans in his first few months than Bush ever had; he asked the evangelical Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inauguration; he avoided abortion and gay rights issues; he refused to investigate, let alone prosecute, the war crimes of his predecessor; and he has ramped up the war in Afghanistan. He has cut taxes and refused to nationalise the banks.
"But for all this, he is the target of almost relentless and extreme opposition, painting him as the most radical and extremist anti-American ever in the Oval Office."

Andrew Sullivan in The Sunday Times criticizes Republicans for fostering political polarization.