President Obama Jogs GOP’s Memory: “I Won”
Ouch! It’s not easy getting your proverbial butt handed to you on a platter, so any of us can feel the pain of having to face oneself in the mirror and say, “I l.o.s.t.” And to hear it again and again from one’s own party members isn’t bad enough. Now, the almost always docile Democrats are saying it too, and at the highest level. Last Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported on that day’s “White House working discussion over the shape and size of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan. The meeting was designed to promote bipartisanship. But,” the WSJ observed, “Obama showed that in an ideological debate, he’s not averse to using a jab.” Challenged by Republican Senator Kyl or Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) – it’s unclear who – over the contents of the fiscal stimulus package, replied with a single one-two punch: “I won.” No knock out was reported, but a little rhetorical blood had been drawn, and some GOPers felt a bit unnerved so unaccustomed were they to falling back a bit on their heels.
For most Democrats that “jab” reported by WSJ has long ago been abandoned, with the roundhouse hook or swift uppercut an even more distant memory. During the Bush years, even when they had a majority in Congress, as in the 110th Congress, they cowered in a defensive crouch and “fought back” by taking punches on the gloves, hoping, Olympics style, to win on points. In the event they did land a blow, they’d more often apologize than follow up. President Obama gave his best public demonstration since the campaign that he’s got fight in him, and Democrats ought to
************Click “Read More” (below right), for more, plus video —————–>>>>
follow his lead, start morning runs, and afternoon workouts with the punching bags. Up to now, they’ve been the punching bags.Politico noted that President Obama delivered his comment “matter-of-factly, according to sources familiar with the conversation.” Obama’s got sting.
The Friday WSJ article added,
The [“I won”] was prompted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) , who challenged the president and the Democratic leaders over the balance between the package’s spending and tax cuts, bringing up the traditional Republican notion that a tax credit for people who do not earn enough to pay income taxes is not a tax cut but a government check. Obama noted that such workers pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, property taxes and sales taxes. The issue was widely debated during the presidential campaign, when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the Republican nominee, challenged Obama’s tax plan as “welfare.”
(Note that McCain himself proposed refundable tax credits, too, as part of his health care plan but conveniently called them “reform,” not “welfare.”)
Republican legislators have, I think, wisely chosen to not counterattack against the “I won.” As the WSJ observed, it was “a jab,” a little pop to the nose by the new President, just to get their attention and metaphorically drive home a point. The GOP knows the electoral facts; their ability to obstruct legislatively is always at the ready, but to snipe and bellow “successfully” within this critically ill economy against a popular and invigorating President is beyond their present strength.
The Persistence of Memory. After years of vile blowhards like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Tom DeLay, John Boehner, and countless other GOP uber partisans, imagine suggesting President Obama is too partisan or “boastful” about his electoral win! We have, for example, a quick and deadly uppercut in reply. Not President Anymore Bush himself provides the gloves down opening with his too glib performance at his November 4, 2004 press conference, two days after winning 50.7% of the popular votes in the closest election since, well, four years earlier when he needed a final push from the Supreme Court to “win.”
Displaying the mathematical ability of a poorly trained rhesus monkey, he was feeling Bushfillment about the presumed “mandate” his nearly non existent victory over the unfairly maligned John Kerry bestowed. Mike Allen of the Washington Post – a sycophantic and sickeningly deferential Bush Reporter Booster Club member – asked him, “Do you feel more free, sir?,”
He answered happily – now famously – pressing his victory lap accelerator to the floorboard:
[A]fter hundreds of speeches and three debates and interviews and the whole process, where you keep basically saying the same thing over and over again, that–when you win, there is a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view. And that’s what I intend to tell the Congress, that I made it clear what I intend to do as the President, now let’s work to–and the people made it clear what they wanted–now let’s work together.
And it’s one of the wonderful–it’s like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That’s what happened in the–after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I’ve earned capital in this election, and I’m going to spend it for what I told the people I’d spend it on . . . [Emphasis added]
So, it’s a nice early episode in the Obama Presidency. The well earned, “I won,” on his side; and the well-deserved “You lost,” on the other. I hope it serves to plant a seed of backbone in so many other Democratic legislators, a seed that sprouts quickly in the new sun of the 111th Congress.
