DAVID HARSANYI: The Comforting Fictions Of Obama’s Farewell Speech.

There was much to process, and many policy claims to debunk, but for me the most grating aspect of the address were the broader fictions Obama likes to repeat.

“When Congress is dysfunctional,” Obama explained, “we should draw our districts to encourage politicians to cater to common sense and not rigid extremes.” For the president, a “dysfunctional” Congress means a Congress unwilling to pass progressive legislation. That is not the definition of dysfunctional, I’m afraid. Nor is it the definition of extreme.

There is nothing in the Constitution instructing legislators to acquiesce to the president. In the near future, the GOP Congress will be passing tons of legislation, and I can assure you neither Obama, nor his many fans in the media, will be celebrating the fact that Congress is finally “getting stuff done” or “doing its job.” Progress will no longer be measured in the number of bills signed.

There’s one metric for a GOP Congress when there’s a Democrat in the White House, and a completely different metric for a GOP Congress with a Republican president.