Somebody give this man a road map! The individuals with whom President Obama needs to palaver over the looming “fiscal cliff” are down Pennsylvania Avenue, in a building with a big white dome at its center. They are not in Hatfield, Pa., one of the towns he plans to visit beginning on Wednesday when he takes his case to the American people, the Associated Press reports. (Presumably, Hatfield and its Keystone State ilk are no longer populated by bitter clingers.)
The strategy—asking “the folks” to call their congressman—is as wrong-headed and counterproductive as it was the umpteen times Obama used it during his first three years in office. One of the most critical facets of the president’s job description is the ability to work in concert with the legislature at hammering out deals. The task doesn’t require grandiose promises, such as Obama’s fatuous and half-hearted offers to ”wash John Boehner’s car” or “walk Mitch McConnell’s dog.” It does, however, require finesse and give-and-take, qualities of which this self-important man is in short supply.
His version of “working with Congress” (meaning the GOP-controlled House) has amounted to ridiculing his opponents across the aisle and attempting to create divisions. He seems to forget that it was because of his my-way-or-the-highway approach to the passage of Obamacare—not in spite of it—that the House fell under Republican leadership in the first place.
This time, his appeal to the masses has the added nonsensicality of being irrelevant. The related questions of whether taxes are raised on the upper 2% or on all Americans, whether specific spending cuts are identified, and whether changes to entitlements are part of the deal are not up for public referendum. They are to be decided by our elected officials … and right soon. That cliff is a mere 35 days off.
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