When, finally, the President asked to address a joint session of Congress to present his plan to tackle this greatest challenge facing the nation, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) brushed off the putative leader of the free world, and told him to call back when it was more convenient for Republicans.
"The Senate Historical Office knows of no instance in which Congress refused the president permission to speak before a joint session of Congress," associate Senate historian Betty Koed told the New York Times.
Obama responded as predictably as a salivating Pavlovian dog, scraping and bowing before Boehner and rescheduling his speech from Wednesday, September 7, to Thursday, September 8.
Republicans and Tea Party zealots coast to coast howled with laughter at this latest wiping of the Presidential eye. They were delighted to extract another embarrassing backpedal from the beleaguered Capitulator-in Chief, forcing the President of the United States to juggle the most important policy initiative of his tenure so Republicans could gather round their televisions and applaud their rogues' gallery of Oval Office pretenders declaim which among them would hand the biggest and most ostentatious tax cuts, tax breaks and tax subsidies to their wealthy cronies.
The President was relegated to Thursday night, when most of the country would be watching the New Orleans Saints take on the Green Bay Packers to kick off the National Football League's 2011 season.
With his jobs speech supplication, Obama's capitulations reached a truly grotesque nadir. Not only was he incapable of championing his party's positions, he was incapable even of convening Congress. Republicans brazenly flouted utter disdain for the President, declaring they had no interest in hearing, let alone passing, his proposals.
Obama capitulated on judicial nominees, surrendering qualified candidates to Republican whims. Obama capitulated on administrative nominees, crippling the government's ability to function by caving to Republican intransigence. Obama capitulated on the stimulus plan desperately needed to haul the nation's moribund economy out of the morass Republicans created.
Obama capitulated on health care, surrendering Democratic plans for a desperately needed single-payer system to the demands of the Republicans' insurance industry cronies. Obama capitulated on offshore oil drilling, surrendering to Republican demands for more oil leases in exchange for the confirmation of an Interior Department official. Obama capitulated on approval of the 2011 budget, surrendering to Republican demands that billions in vital services be slashed from a spending law already agreed upon. Obama capitulated on the the normally pro forma raising of the nation's debt ceiling, surrendering to unconscionable Republican demands to slash trillions during a stagnant economy when, as the consumer of last resort, the government should have been increasing spending to stimulate the economy, not slashing spending to further depress the economy.
Obama capitulated to Republican demands despite Democrats controlling both the Executive Branch and the Senate. Obama's capitulations were an infamous betrayal of the public trust. Instead of fighting for the people who sent him to Washington, Obama scraped and bowed to placate plutocrat-loving Republicans.
As a poster child for simpering servility, Obama supplanted Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister rightfully disdained for his appeasement of Adolf Hitler. Had Obama met Hitler, instead of Chamberlain's infamous "Peace in our time" speech, you would have gotten Kennedy's "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.
Obama's deferrals have grown so alarming, Republicans could demand any humiliation, and no disgrace could come as a surprise.
- Whenever Obama entered a room, instead of striking up Hail to the Chief, the Marine Corp. Band would play Send in the Clowns.
- Boehner would take over all presidential signing ceremonies, shaking hands and posing for photos and handling the souvenir pens, while Obama, to fulfill Constitutional requirements, initialed the documents here, here and here.
- Boehner could commandeer Air Force One and ride it to and from his golfing vacations, while Obama travelled by Greyhound Ameripass.
- Boehner would host all State Dinners, greeting foreign dignitaries and heads of state while Obama sat at a folding card table in the corner with Sasha and Malia.
- Obama's Presidential Motorcade would be reduced to six tricycles and a clown car, appropriately following the Parade of Elephants.
- Boehner and his Republican cohort could take over the White House, where they would throw lavish parties for their K Street cronies and ultra-wealthy patrons, while Obama was restricted to the back porch with an old blanket, a collection of squeak toys, and a rawhide chew, subject to Bo's seniority.
Indeed, with his constant snivelling capitulations to even the most audacious and egregious Republican demands, Obama has despoiled the dignity of the Presidency to the point where no person of conscience could brook allowing such a crawling annelid to occupy the Oval Office.
Obama either didn't know or didn't care that his feeble servility denigrated both the office he occupied and the people who elected him. His continuous scraping and bowing to Boehner and Congressional Republicans crippled his administration and the nation it was supposed to serve.
Far beyond languid discussion of a Democratic Primary challenge to Obama, it was vital that Democrats demanded Obama at the very least declined to seek a second term. Ideally, Obama should step down immediately before he further disgraced himself and his party.
If Obama were to capitulate to Republican demands that Medicare and Social Security be dismantled and privatized, he would destroy the Democratic brand, surrender the high ground his party enjoyed on those issues, and, not least of all, condemn millions of Americans to misery and indigence.
And, the Capitulator-in-Chief appeared primed to do so by Christmas.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments may be moderated for relevance and gratuitous abusiveness