Obama actually has this right, just not in the way he intends it to be:

Obama’s comments to a local paper – source: Politico

“I understand their efforts to brand themselves in that fashion. I just want to make sure that when it comes to solving this current economic crisis that we don’t get so caught up in short-term politics that we’re missing the big picture.”

“The Republican Party right now hasn’t sort of figured out what it’s for,” Obama said during a Monday interview with regional press, according to a transcript posted Tuesday by the Louisville Courier-Journal.
“As a proxy, they’ve just decided, ‘We’re going to be against whatever the other side is for,’” he said. “That’s not what’s needed in an economic crisis. You can play that game maybe in the early ’90s, when basically we were pretty prosperous. Right now, everybody has got to pull together.”
…
“What you’ve seen is the Republican Party trying to position themselves as fiscally conservative after eight years of being in power and not being particularly fiscally conservative,” Obama said.

No, Mr. President.  We understand the big picture fine and dandy:  We’re not going to let you knock the country off its successful flight path of the last 230-odd years.

While we Republicans are sorting out what exactly it means to be a Republican and what our guiding principles are, some things that we’ve strayed from are coming back in full force.  Take spending.  You rightly say that we’ve not been ones to talk about ballooning deficits and the like over the last 8 years. Fine.  We’ll grant you that.

But just as an alcoholic has to wake up in the gutter and come to the realization that past behavior has been destructive, so we’ve come back to the basics as it were.  We’re going to spend money where it’s necessary and only where it’s necessary.  And try our darnedest to put the American people’s money where it belongs and will do the most good:  in the hands of the American people.

So here’s a list of where the people’s greenbacks should not go:  Trial lawyers.  Union big bosses.  democrat party hacks.  Useless bureaucrats.  Middlemen in general.  Down ratholes marked ‘capital misallocation’.

Mr. President, when you want to have a dialogue on how the folks get to keep their bucks, how to maximize entrepreneurship, maximize technological development, instill what it means to be a hard-charging, hard working, honorable American in our kids, all the while being good neighbors, we’re right here.  And boy, will we have an earful for you to hear and a stack of stuff for you to read.  Let’s get it done.

But if you want to use our tax dollars to front a series of disincentives, to feed an inefficient government system that acts as a source of economic friction, to create a permanent entitlement disability and stifle the entrepreneurial spirit, strap on your helmet.  Because we’ll be there to stuff on 1st, 2nd and 3rd downs each and every time.  Hope you have a good punter on your team, ’cause you’ll need it.

Sincerely,
The Republicans.