Dan Balz has an amazing article in today’s Washington Post.

One of the puzzling questions about Barack Obama's presidency is how the post-partisan candidate of 2008 became the polarizing chief executive of 2010. The answer may be surprising. He was far more polarizing from the start than many recognized. His choices in office and his opponents' responses have only hardened that divide.

Really? He was “far more polarizing” than “many recognized?”

Hardly. McCain noted it repeatedly during the 2008 campaign. Obama had never in his years as a politician reached across the aisle. And McCain called him on it long before either one of them were their party’s nominees.

Republican Sen. John McCain on Monday accused his Democratic colleague Barack Obama of "partisan posturing" on the issue of lobbying ethics reform — a charge Obama called puzzling and regrettable.

The exchange, made in letters between the pair, was the latest sign of trouble as the two parties try to come up with legislation governing relations with lobbyists.

Based on past Obama statements, "I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable," McCain, R.-Ariz., wrote in a letter to Obama, D-Ill., Monday. "Thank you for disabusing me of such notions."

If anyone failed to recognize this history, they were either listening to the mainstream media – or a member of the MSM.

Sidney Milkis of the University of Virginia and Jesse Rhodes of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst write favorably of the political organization Obama built and maintains, for example.

But in their paper, the two also highlight how tensions between Obama's post-partisan instincts clashed with his commitment to "traditional Democratic priorities." Obama has frustrated liberals in his own party by trying to reach out to Republicans while angering Republicans by pressing an agenda that was anathema to conservatives.

Really? I’d like an example. When has Obama actually tried to reach out to Republicans in a substantive way? On the stimulus? Nope. He outsourced that to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi and told the GOP to pound sand. Obamacare? Not a single GOP vote.

If this is reaching out, I’m wondering what the back of his hand would look like.