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GOP: No
cars keys for you!
Gene Lyons hits another home run
Excerpt:
Obama seems to be finally realizing that the
GOP needs to be confronted, not coddled
I've heard that somewhere before, but I can't
remember where.
One minor mystery of the Obama administration
is whether the president has actually believed that the nation's
most intractable problems could be solved by
the wonder-working power of bipartisanship and the emollient balm
of his personality. He wouldn't be the first
politician whose ego convinced him he could sweet-talk his bitterest opponents.
Many Democrats think that the White House's ultimately
futile quest for Republican healthcare votes only gave GOP
imagineers more time to frighten gullible voters
with falsehoods about "death panels" and such, weakening public support...
Speaking recently in Buffalo, President Obama
signaled that maybe he gets it.
"When I took office," he said, "we were losing
750,000 jobs a month ... I had just inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit from
the
previous administration, so the last thing I
wanted to do was to spend money on a recovery package, or help the American
auto industry keep its doors open, or prevent
the collapse of Wall Street banks whose irresponsibility had helped cause
this crisis. But what I knew was if I didn't
act boldly and I didn't act quickly ... we could have risked an even greater
disaster."
Then, at a Manhattan fundraiser, Obama came up
with the perfect metaphor. He said that Republicans had made a calculated
decision to oppose all White House initiatives,
and to hope for the worst. "So after they drove the car into the ditch,
made it as
difficult as possible for us to pull it back,
now they want the keys back. No! You can't drive! We don't want to have
to go
back into the ditch! We just got the car out!"
Give 'em hell, Barack. Over and over until they
get the message."
Obama seems to be a "stay the course" guy, and
that means making friends with the snarling dogs.
But every now and then he shows a flash of frustration
like he finally understands what's up.
When he does, guys like me cheer and say,
"Maybe he's finally waking up,"
and then the next day he's got The Bitch and The Boner over for tea
and we're back to Square One.
I really hate this thought, but maybe if the Dems actually lose those
100 House seats Boner talks about,
will he THEN understand that while he's playing patty cake, the GOP
is building a lynching playform?