Obama Officially Abandons Governing by Keith Koffler on January 3, 2012, 9:30 am
While President Obama was in Hawaii, the White House put out word that he has stopped being president.
Instead, he plan to resume his preferred role as presidential campaigner. Meantime, the country will be run by . . . no one.
Obama will now be able to devote himself fully to the things he loves best – campaigning during the week and golfing on Sunday.
In a startling interview with the New York Times, White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest all but acknowledged that Obama was finished with the presidency until he wins it again.
“In terms of the president’s relationship with Congress in 2012,” Mr. Earnest said at a briefing, “the president is no longer tied to Washington, DC”
The president is no longer tied to Washington DC? Are Congress and Obama going to take their act on the road and make laws in Cincinnati? We’re finished legislating for the year?
“There are certainly other things the president would like to do,” Mr. Earnest said, citing other provisions of the jobs bill. “But in terms of essential, must-do items, the payroll tax cut extension is the last one.”
So, the economy is stalled, millions are out of work, and there are no more “must do” items, other than the president’s reelection?
I have to give the White House credit for putting its card on the table. This is certainly a record-setting level of Chutzpah they are displaying. I called the Guinness Book of World Record, in fact, and they agreed to publish it immediately.
I wish there more jobs around where you could just announce that you were taking the rest of the year off.
Obama starts campaigning immediately upon returning from Hawaii, engaging in some kind of video hookup with Iowa Democratic Caucusgoers today and traveling to Cleveland Wednesday.
Sure, it’s a political year, and Congress is full of Republicans out for Obama’s scalp. But that doesn’t mean you abandon serious effort to pass legislation.
But what fun would legislating be? It would take awkward, tedious meetings with members of Congress, putting politics aside, cutting back on trips to Ohio – all the things Obama hates!!
It would require leadership.
Bill Clinton signed welfare reform in August 1996, reaching agreement with a Congress full of Repulicans who were out for his scalp. And it was good for the country. And few months later, he was reelected.
This year, the White House has telegraphed, we will not see Obama do much that is good for the country. And so, we may well not see him reelected either.
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