Alexander: President should 'leave the street fighting' at the door

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) on Thursday urged President Barack Obama to "leave the street fighting to campaign consultants and people who are not in the White House."

The president should also refrain from any campaign to snuff out dissent -- from calling out senators who disagree with the stimulus to imposing a "gag order" on Medicare providers -- and temper an approach to politics that has "in many ways" made the Obama White House "a lot tougher than the Nixon White House was," Alexander added.

"I think the presidency is a very valuable institution and it is diminished when the president brings street fighting and brawling into the White House," the senator told MSNBC on Thursday. "I mean, the idea of a president saying 'I'm going to call you out if you oppose me' ... it's coming very close to adding up all the people who are against him and turning it into an enemies list."

Alexander first offered his criticism of the Obama White House's style earlier this week, when he accused the president of approaching politics the same way President Richard Nixon did.

In Alexander's opinion, the administration has all but bullied its most vocal foes. He has so far criticized the White House for silencing Medicare providers who tried to inform beneficiaries of possible changes to their plans, calling out Fox News for its reporting, pressing senators who "disagree on czars" and threatening taxes against dissenting industries, the senator suggested.

Instead, Alexander urged the president to resist "the feeling that the people out there are out to get us," avoid creating an "enemies list" and work more closely with his political adversaries.

"Work with Mitch McConnell on Social Security, work with me on education, work with Republicans on a health care plan," he said. "Reserve to the president the important issues that the president ought to be dealing with and not be involved in street fighting."