Cat on a Hot Stove

[Michele]

PRESIDENT OBAMA won big.

So why did the moment feel so small?

At his victory scold in the State Dining Room on Thursday, the president who yearned to be transformational stood beneath an oil portrait of Abraham Lincoln and demanded . . . a farm bill. He also couldn’t resist taking a holier-than-thou tone toward his tail-between-their-legs Tea Party foes. He assumed his favorite role of the shining knight hectoring the benighted: Sir Lecturealot.

“All of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists and the bloggers and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict,” he sermonized. (We have met the enemy and they are . . . bloggers?)

Certainly, the House Republicans who held their breath until the country turned blue acted like foolhardy children on what John McCain called “a fool’s errand.”

The country agreed. So it probably wasn’t necessary for papa to preach, overacting the role of weary parent watching the irresponsible kids make their mistakes.

Sir Lecturealot, who hates selling and explaining and negotiating and cajoling and knocking noggins, always manages to convey tedium at the idea that he actually has to persuade people to come along with him, given the fact that he feels he’s doing what’s right.

Obama says he will now work for an immigration bill and a budget deal with deficit cuts. But as Peter Nicholas and Carol E. Lee pointed out in The Wall Street Journal, the president did not mention his more ambitious goals: hiking the minimum wage, widening access to preschool education, and shoring up bridges and roads.

“Those efforts require bipartisan consensus that may be even more elusive amid the ill will carried over from the budget fight,” they wrote.

Senator McCain, who excoriated the Tea Party zanies and voted with the president, indicated to The Journal that the president had poisoned the well. “A lot of us are resentful that he didn’t negotiate as hard as we think he could have or should have,” he said. He told CNN that if Obama does not “engage” with his adversaries, “obviously you’re not going to be a successful president.”

Democrats, too, chided the president for being the diffident debutante.

“This is a town where it’s not enough to feel you have the right answers,” Leon Panetta, the former congressman, Clinton chief of staff, C.I.A. director and defense chief, pointedly told Washington reporters. “You’ve got to roll up your sleeves, and you’ve got to really engage in the process.”

Senator Dianne Feinstein also urged presidential leadership, noting that Obama “stepped back” partly because he felt “burned” by all the scabrous budget fights. But as Mark Twain said, “We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”

And if Obama is anything, he’s a cold cat on a hot stove.

Washington is surpassingly nutty right now, but the founding fathers did build a system designed for factional warfare. When sweet reasonableness doesn’t work, Obama’s default position is didactic disdain. He underuses the fear and charm cards. When he first saw the White House movie theater, he was surprised there were so many seats beyond what the first family would need. Bill Clinton, on the other hand, probably would have built a balcony and auctioned off seats, if he could have.

As Valerie Jarrett told David Remnick in “The Bridge,” Obama’s “uncanny” abilities need to be properly engaged, or he disengages. “He’s been bored to death his whole life,” she said. “He’s just too talented to do what ordinary people do.”

Matt Viser wrote in The Boston Globe that, while Obama soared talking about getting past blue-and-red slicing and dicing, the blue states are getting bluer and the red states redder. In his stateside travel schedule, political meetings, staffing and legislative accomplishments, Obama has cleaved to the blue side more than he has tried to reach out to the red side, Viser wrote.


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[Billy Jingo]

You know things are fucked up when keeping the government functioning and not defaulting on our nation's obligations is considered a victory.

[scott]

The President is not a leader. He's an immature figurehead who governs by spite.

[scott]

You know things are fucked up when keeping the government functioning and not defaulting on our nation's obligations is considered a victory.

It's fucked up when people think the inability to borrow for just one instant automatically means default. Also, the government WAS functioning, albeit at a lower capacity. However, that's how it goes when things are pushed so far.

[Gramps]

It's fucked up when people think the inability to borrow for just one instant automatically means default. Also, the government WAS functioning, albeit at a lower capacity. However, that's how it goes when things are pushed so far.

the defense of Obama is amazing

people will chomp onto anything that takes the bitter taste away for a moment

I, admittedly, have never voted for a D President, and considered myself a strong Republican, until Bush's second term.

I had no problems criticizing his actions.
Still don't.

Blind obedience to a party or cause isn't remarkable, unless the person in that position tends to elevate their intellectual prowess and never actually defend the position.

If you cannot step back and acknowledge the clay feet of your idol, you ate the cookie and washed it down with the kool-aide

[Lanie]

It's fucked up when people think the inability to borrow for just one instant automatically means default. Also, the government WAS functioning, albeit at a lower capacity. However, that's how it goes when things are pushed so far.

States were starting to refuse WIC. While we're being told that didn't happen, the truth is in some cases, parents had not received their vouchers for the month yet.

Disability applications were going to be slowed down.

Federal workers went without work. Some ignorant person suggested they get loans. Uh, is he aware that you need a job to get a loan?

All this going on while these freeloaders in Washington DC pick pocketed us for a paycheck. We also still paid for the superior healthcare. I now understand the drama queen argument that the poor is pick pocketing us because that's *exactly* how I feel about congress. Adam brings up an amendment. Oh how freakin convenient! They made an amendment stating they could never be deprived even if they refused to do their job. Working together for a budget, that's their job. Their job is not to fight and shut things down when they're not happy. They should be boxers if they feel this way. Fucking freeloader welfare queens.

[phillygirl]

States were starting to refuse WIC. While we're being told that didn't happen, the truth is in some cases, parents had not received their vouchers for the month yet.

Yeah, that's a problem and I feel for those that truly truly needed it and couldn't function without it at that point. I don't really know what to do about that, except a reminder that in general you always need to try to have an emergency fund somewhere, somehow. But I get it.

Disability applications were going to be slowed down.

Yeah...talk to the Vietnam Veterans suffering from Agent Orange related illnesses and the 46 years they've been waiting for their applications to get processed. A good percentage of them are going to die before theirs get processed. And then talk to me about cop welfare.

Federal workers went without work. Some ignorant person suggested they get loans. Uh, is he aware that you need a job to get a loan?

Unfortunate that some federal workers felt 2 weeks of the pain so many private sector workers have felt for the past 5 years. In my opinion, we'd do better with a whole lot fewer federal workers. Perhaps the foreign embassy staffers could hold a few less parties here and there.

All this going on while these freeloaders in Washington DC pick pocketed us for a paycheck. We also still paid for the superior healthcare. I now understand the drama queen argument that the poor is pick pocketing us because that's *exactly* how I feel about congress. Adam brings up an amendment. Oh how freakin convenient! They made an amendment stating they could never be deprived even if they refused to do their job. Working together for a budget, that's their job. Their job is not to fight and shut things down when they're not happy. They should be boxers if they feel this way. Fucking freeloader welfare queens.

Yeah, that too.

[scott]

Yeah, that's a problem and I feel for those that truly truly needed it and couldn't function without it at that point. I don't really know what to do about that, except a reminder that in general you always need to try to have an emergency fund somewhere, somehow. But I get it.



Yeah...talk to the Vietnam Veterans suffering from Agent Orange related illnesses and the 46 years they've been waiting for their applications to get processed. A good percentage of them are going to die before theirs get processed. And then talk to me about cop welfare.

Unfortunate that some federal workers felt 2 weeks of the pain so many private sector workers have felt for the past 5 years. In my opinion, we'd do better with a whole lot fewer federal workers. Perhaps the foreign embassy staffers could hold a few less parties here and there.


Yeah, that too.

That said, a furloughed federal worker would have no problem at all getting a loan for 2 weeks worth of pay. Either s/he was going to get full back pay because that is what has happened for every other shutdown or if this were truly something different that's a small amount for someone with an otherwise guaranteed paycheck.

And what's with this, "you need a job to get a loan" nonsense? These federal workers were furloughed, not fired. They still had jobs. Overdramatic cluelessness like this is what makes rational discussion impossible.

I think it's a good thing for the government workers to finally feel a minor scintilla of the pinch that everyone else has felt due to their ever-growing demands for pay raises in a recession.

[phillygirl]

That said, a furloughed federal worker would have no problem at all getting a loan for 2 weeks worth of pay. Either s/he was going to get full back pay because that is what has happened for every other shutdown or if this were truly something different that's a small amount for someone with an otherwise guaranteed paycheck.

And what's with this, "you need a job to get a loan" nonsense? These federal workers were furloughed, not fired. They still had jobs. Overdramatic cluelessness like this is what makes rational discussion impossible.

I think it's a good thing for the government workers to finally feel a minor scintilla of the pinch that everyone else has felt due to their ever-growing demands for pay raises in a recession.

My father was a federal employee. We felt the pinch, the stress, etc. every time there was a change in the Administration, every time there was a budget crisis, etc. It's part of the territory.

[Adam]

States were starting to refuse WIC.

A state said it wouldn't be able to provide full funding for a federal program if the federal government wasn't there to fund the federal program. Everyone act surprised!

While we're being told that didn't happen, the truth is in some cases, parents had not received their vouchers for the month yet.

Then they apparently didn't check their mailboxes, or else they sold them for crack right away and decided to cry afterwards. Every news report I can find says that the NC department of human welfare or whatever it's called sent every single person entitled to WIC as of October 1 their WIC vouchers prior to the federal "shutdown" or "slimdown" or "slowdown" or "dumbdown" or whatever the Democrats are calling it this week.

Disability applications were going to be slowed down.

That's probably not a bad idea, frankly. There are a shit ton of people out there who are drawing disability for abject bullshit reasons like "back pain." Well, welcome to the real world, asshole! We ALL have back pain! That's a result of work for the rest of us.

Half the people on my street (literally; not an exaggeration) draw "disability." When I first moved in here, I paid one of those people on "disability" for "back pain" to mow my yard because I didn't have time to. Some disability.

Federal workers went without work.

Federal workers got a paid holiday. Ever been somewhere that was a private company that closed its doors for two weeks? Guess what: the rest of America doesn't get paid in that circumstance.

Some ignorant person suggested they get loans. Uh, is he aware that you need a job to get a loan?

See scott's reply.

All this going on while these freeloaders in Washington DC pick pocketed us for a paycheck. We also still paid for the superior healthcare. I now understand the drama queen argument that the poor is pick pocketing us because that's *exactly* how I feel about congress. Adam brings up an amendment. Oh how freakin convenient! They made an amendment stating they could never be deprived even if they refused to do their job. Working together for a budget, that's their job. Their job is not to fight and shut things down when they're not happy. They should be boxers if they feel this way. Fucking freeloader welfare queens.

I said to change Amendment XXVII, because whether any of us like it, it was passed, through the most difficult method in the country of passing any law. Like Prohibition, it was a theoretically good idea that has gone fourteen kinds of wrong. The idea at the time was to not let Congress vote itself pay raises. It did that, but Congress just instead voted itself automatic pay raises that they have to vote against now in order to keep from getting more pay raises.

Welcome to the reality of an over-powerful federal government and a public-elected Senate.

[scott]

My father was a federal employee. We felt the pinch, the stress, etc. every time there was a change in the Administration, every time there was a budget crisis, etc. It's part of the territory.

How?

Did he lose his job or was he just told that he was going to maybe lose it? Did he get a pay cut because a new President showed up to fix the problems or was he just told that he might get a pay cut?

Seriously, I'm curious about this.