In this case Digby is quoting someone else but she didn't link to it and I'm too lazy to find it so you get the link to her article.
I didn't listen to the SOTU but the morning after one of the quotes played was the "I have no doubt a president with the gifts of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide..." and my first thought was "Bullshit!". Obama has to know better, and it is very frustrating that he would have said that, but neither of those presidents "bridged the divide". Their opponents hated them. One's mere election led to succession and civil war and the other was despised but his opposition was helpless to do much since the country had placed them so firmly in the minority.
I think it is one of Obama's greatest failings that he seems (maybe still) to think that Republicans and Democrats can come together and do great things. Politicians and people associate with R or D because they prefer one set of ideas to another. Compromise is fine, but you can't get consensus between the parties on major things because the parties exist because of differences of opinions in those big things.
When you get control of everything you don't compromise, you do what you think is best. If it turns out badly, your side gets tossed and the other gets a chance. If you get control of everything then try and get a bunch of compromises through, you are dooming your own party and any hopes of getting the things your party's supporters want. Obama has never seemed to understand that.
(Note: no, this doesn't mean I think he could have necessarily gotten much more accomplished, but he wasted years of efforts in a futile attempt, and he did dishearten lots of the Dem base that got him elected in the first place.)
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