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BOEHNER AND THE EXPOSED CHICKEN RUMP
Moody's, the credit rating agency is warning that if the upcoming Congressional budget negotiations fail, the United States will hit the dreaded "fiscal cliff" and its rating would be lowered. However, the news is not what Moody's are saying; it's the reaction from no other than the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner. The wind is blowing hard and the poor chicken's rump is being exposed.
Considering that one of the issues in this election is the role the Republican Party has played in obstructing the President Barack Obama for no other reason than as part of their commitment to stop him getting a second term, why would a responsible leader react to such news with the standard negative tripe that he's "not confident at all" that negotiations will be successful, especially after the experience of the 2011 federal debt ceiling battle and the general impression that since they seized the House in 2010 and he became the Speaker, they have simply transformed into the party of no?
Boehner does not seem to be reading the mood of the American people very well. If he was, he would have realised that despite the attempt by him and his party to lump the guilt of the unemployment and low jobs reports on the president, Americans are not buying it. Watching Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, it seems their whole strategy is based on making the unemployment and jobs' issue an Obama record, collar him with it, while leading the nation in a chorus of condemnation through to November 6 when he would be voted out. They had a convention and came out without a bounce and waited for the Democratic Party to get on with its own and walk face first into the Friday unemployment and poor jobs report. In fact, Republican bigwigs gleefully gloated about how the unemployment and poor jobs report was going to wipe the smile off Obama's face the morning after the night before. Mitt Romney precipitately declared it a hangover. But, what did we get? Obama rising in the polls and leaving poor Mitt behind!
The reason is obvious. Americans have become more informed about what happened in the corridors of power in the past couple of years and are beginning to make their own judgment about what really transpired. They have largely resolved that in view of the huge mess he inherited, Obama has done and is still doing his best with the economy in the circumstances of Republican hostility and obstructionism. They understand that where compromises are desirable, principles also matter. They understand that at stake during the debt ceiling negotiations were principles and the president has never hidden where he stood and what he would not do. He has repeatedly told the Republicans that anything that will put extra tax burden on the middle class and further overburden seniors and the poor while rewarding the rich wouldn't get his signature. The Republicans, beholden to the rich, are angry because President Obama has been an unshakable advocate on behalf of the middle class, the poor and the vulnerable, so they've declared him a dangerous socialist loner who is too naïve and "immature" to understand the art of political smooching to achieve results.
Yet, Americans do not see it that way. The reason Obama's poll numbers are rising in the midst of the bad unemployment and jobs news is because they see a president totally committed to getting it right, a president that is batting for them in hard times, under huge pressures from the heavily-moneyed class, a president bloodied, but unbowed, a happy warrior whose sunny optimism carries the nation forward. They see a president not in the least intimidated by an opposition that has elevated political and ideological disagreements almost to the realms of treason, an opposition that has made brinkmanship into an art form. For instance, since the Democratic takeover of the Senate in 2006, the Republicans have mounted a record 380 filibusters. That does not look like a party ready for the business of government.
Therefore, Boehner's precipitate declaration that he isn't confident of a successful negotiation is only a confirmation for those still in doubt that he himself is a prisoner of the extreme right of his party. "I look at my failure to come to an agreement with the president as the biggest disappointment of my speakership", he says. But he'll have to save those crocodile tears, because Americans have since wised up to his obstructionist games. By saying he is not confident of a deal now that he has another opportunity, he is only preparing an excuse for a contrived failure. He is simply confirming the president's view that he did not have his party behind the agreement he ran away from, which further explains why he did not pick up the president's calls thereafter. The excuse that the president was asking for more taxes cannot hold, because if that were the case, it was incumbent upon the Speaker to simply pick up the phone and say no to the president's new demand. After all, it was no imposition; it was a proposal during a negotiation process. He didn't pick up the phone because he knew that he wouldn't be able to deliver if the president asked him to deliver on what was agreed without his additional demand for more taxes.
At any rate, the American people have obviously made up their mind about this, which is what is reflecting in the polls now. They have seen that they made a mistake in handing over control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans in 2010, because all they have done is use it as a weapon against Americans by opposing every attempt the president has been making to turn things around. Americans cannot understand why except that the Republicans from day one had invested in humiliating the president out of office through sabotaging anything they think would likely give him credit with the American people and therefore help his re-election.
Their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell did not mince words from day one when he declared that their main task is to ensure that President Obama is a one-term president. He, Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Senator Chuck Grassley and every Republican in the House simply followed that script. For their own selfish and vain reasons, they refused to pass the American Jobs Bill, which experts say would have created almost two million jobs. They refused to pass this Bill at a time unemployment was at 9.1% because they want to disgrace the president. This was a Bill the president worked very hard for – a Bill he took round the country in a campaign, selling its benefits to the American people. So, Americans know what's been going on and now that the elections are here, they want to pass judgment the only way they can. They want to speak with their vote and they aren't going to sit there and be brainwashed by people who've misused the power they were granted last time around.
What this means is that discerning independent-minded citizens critical of the unemployment rate and the slow job growth are only now of two categories. They are either sharing the blame for the unemployment and slow job growth between the president and the Republican opposition in Congress or they are solely blaming the Republicans for their obstructionism, believing that if they had passed the president's American Jobs Bill, the unemployment and jobs situation would have been better. This is why despite all the hoopla about the unemployment figures and the dismal jobs growth, the president's polls numbers continue to rise. Americans have resolved that the unemployment and debt situation is not entirely down to him and have therefore refused to punish him for this in the polls. They have also resolved not to reward the obstructionist Republicans at the polls, no matter how much they howl about the jobs and the debt situation, because at the very least, they are as much part of the problem as the president they are accusing.
Unfortunately for the Republicans, this was the only basket they placed all their eggs; they have no Plan B. The more they hammer on this towards the election, the more they go down in the polls. President Barack Obama and the Democrats have appropriately defined this as a choice election and the American people agree with them. So far, Romney and Ryan aren't giving Americans any reason to believe they are a better choice than Obama. They think merely complaining about him or claiming he has no record to run on would do. Evidently, it won't. The unemployment and slow job growth apart, Obama has a superb record to run on and that is obvious to most discerning Americans, despite Republican propaganda. They may be banking on 'carpet bombing' the whole space with negative ads before the election, but they can only do so on the economy. This would be futile, because, as we can see from the above analysis and from the poll numbers, Obama has blunted that attack and the American people have pretty much made up their mind about that. The number of people such a blitz of negative ads will sway will be too small to affect the ultimate outcome.
Boehner should recognise that he and his band of Republican rascals are being offered another chance at Redemption now. He has to begin to say the right things and do the right things to convince the American people that he is not the Congressional head of an obstructionist party. He must begin now to give the President of the United States his due respect and must get his fellow Congressmen and women to do the same. Between now and the election, Americans are watching. Congressional Republicans should be ready to run on their record, because on November 6, the people will decide.
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