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The *wrong* Big Question.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  March 5th, 2010 at 09:00 AM  | 

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(Via Instapundit) The Hill’s Congress Blog asks a question which has a very obvious answer:

Should Obama get tough with Congress?

or

Should President Barack Obama be more assertive in pushing the rest of his legislative agenda?

…and the answer is, of course, “Yes.” Presidents always need to get tough with Congress.  They particularly need to get tough with Congress when both the legislative and executive branches are held by the same party; when that happens, the former is prone to using the golden opportunity to do something extravagant and stupid… like, say, trying to pass two insanely expensive, ill-thought, transformational pieces of unpopular legislation right after passing a recklessly high, pork-laden spending bill on a party-line vote.  First-term Presidents doubly particularly need to get tough with Congress, assuming of course that they want to also be second-term Presidents.  So, it’s the wrong question.

The right question is:

Can Obama get tough with Congress?

The President obviously can be more assertive – that’s not particularly hard – but whether he’s actually able to make Congress do things has yet to be determined.  There’s been no indication that he even knows how.  And the primary carrot/stick that the administration was going to use for compliance (“I will campaign for Democrats who follow my lead.”) looked a lot more credible as a promise/threat in January 2009 than it does today.  Just ask Governors Deeds & Corzine, not to mention Senator Coakley.

All in all, at this point it may simply be too late for President to acquire any control over the 111st Congress.  And the future leaders of the 112th Congress have been busily taking notes.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

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  • RedBeard

    Once the emperor’s nakedness has been widely noted, his dignity can never recover.

    Obama can only plead with like-minded leftists in Congress, in hopes that he can ride their coattails long enough to falsely take credit in a big teleprompter-driven speech.

  • Leopard1996

    Is either igorant or complicit in this stupidity, and neither is a good quality for a president.

  • RedBeard

    So many words can describe our beloved chief executive, such as arrogance, hubris, narcissism, dogmatism, etc. Rationality is not one of those words. Neither is patriotic a word that could ever be associated with him.

  • Tbone

    I see that King Barry the Hopeful is now going to rally Congress for citizenship for illegal aliens like his Aunt. This will be even more popular for Dems to campaign on than Obamacare.

    In fact, I expect a Birther Caucus to spring up as a sub-caucus of the Democrat Caucus in the very near future.

  • marie_a

    is The Hill background article’s quote from Senator Majority Whip Dick Durban, opined to be the closest lawmaker to the President:

    ?A lot of people who don?t know the inside often criticize him and don?t realize he?s following the direction, sometimes, of the congressional leaders,? said Durbin.

    Real questions: Who are the puppet masters and how will they further assert their socialist leanings on our nation?

  • Praying

    Seems to me that he’s saying “you WILL pass this healthcare bill” and congress is saying “Maybe not… we want jobs next fall.” I’m fine with that – please, please, pretty please let this monstrosity DIE in congress. I don’t have much confidence that any of this piece of crap can be repealed after it passes! And for all the talk of “the president’s bill” – there is none! No legislative language exists. So saying he has incorporated the “best ideas from the democrats and republicans” is a smokescreen – what is being considered by the HOUSE is the SENATE bill that passed on Christmas Eve. No tort reform. No language to specifically prohibit tax dollars being used for abortion. No purchase of insurance across state lines. Yet he continues to talk as if this bill actually EXISTS! So no, I do not want him to get tough with congress.

  • antisocial

    The answer is obvious. Particularly when they know his coattails are poisonous. The first NOTE in that notepad – “Don’t let Obama anywhere near your campaign”

  • http://UnitedConservativesofVirginia Cargosquid

    would mean that Obama would have to LEAD. He doesn’t know how. He’s trying to “organize” the Congress…..

  • redneck_hippie

    The first bite of the a.m. was white house advisors very close to flip flopping on civil trial for KSM. Second bite was a pivot to an amnesty bill.

    Hearing, the 1st, I thought it was a concession that HCR is dead. Then hearing (reading) the second, I’m convinced HCR is dead. All this talk about our candidates campaigning on repeal has increased the panic in the White House. They’ve gone from being negligently blase on the mid-terms to hair-on-fire God Save the Commie in the White House panic. And if Obama had more hair, the fire would be so intense he could throw out his cigarette lighter.

  • http://travismonitor.blogspot.com Freedoms Truth

    Obama ‘getting tough’ is to make his umpteenth call on the Democrat-majority Congress to actually pass HCR…. Hotspur’s Retort from Shakespeare’s Henry IV:

    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.

    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
    But will they come when you do call for them?

  • Flagstaff

    And I think this is generally accurate:

    the [legislature] is prone to using the golden opportunity to do something extravagant and stupid?

    But is it true in Obama’s case? Wasn’t it his own chief of staff who said, “Let no crisis go unmined”? Didn’t Congress do almost exactly what Obama wanted it to do? Obama could stop this Health Care Demolition in its tracks with a few words to Nancy Pelosi–”If you pass it, I will veto it, so don’t pass it out of committee.” If that were to happen, he’d be re-elected and Congress wouldn’t. But he in fact wants it, so he’ll never say that.

    So the answer to your question is Yes, He Can! get tough with Congress. But he doesn’t want to because it’s doing exactly what he wants.

    Only Congress can save the Democrats from themselves.

  • benson1

    Wrong question, wrong answer. Why would we want Obama to get tough with Congress even if he could. What would he get tough about? He agrees totally with all the BS they’re doing, if not why all the Obama speeches and TV specials, town meetings and sending white house sycophants on Sunday talk shows spouting the same lies. They are all of a kind, socialist, progressive liars. The correct question should be how soon can we rid ourselves of these destructive criminals. The answer is 2010 for Congress and 2011 for impeachment of Obama.

  • rbdwiggins

    Better a lame-duck reminder to the electorate as to why they elected a new Republican majority and to secure 45′s mandate.

  • mbecker908
  • Trelaina

    What evidence do you have that Obama has committed any of the crimes that qualify a President for impeachment? Do you even know what they are?

    http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A2Sec4

    Quit this line of talk. It fuels the laughter of the left because it gives them ammunition for their MSNBC talk shows and NYTimes news articles.