and trying to create hope for progress in the US Congress.
The Republicans and teh GOtP have absolutely no damned plans to negotiate in good faith.
There will be no compromising, on their part.
Didn't you hear Rep. Eric Cantor (R/VA-07) or Rep. John Boehner (R/OH-8) in recent weeks? How about Rep. Steve King (R/IA-05).
"No."
"Hell, no."
After the dislocation of yesterday's losses at the polls, the Democratic Leadership needs to take a fresh look at the reality under which they are operating.
I can't believe I'm going there, but...
You have to work with the US Congress you have, not the one you wish you had.
I, too, once dreamed of a US Federal Government fully engaged in legislating These United States into a 21st Century made more perfect, one in which equal treatment and justice for all was becoming more than just a hope.
But that dream died when I, like most of Main Street, noticed that the Minority Party had announced their plan for the 2008-2010 congressional session, and that is was to ensure Barack Obama is a one-term president.
Not to, perhaps reduce the Federal Deficit.
Not to figure out how to fix the ever-expanding scope of the Fraudclosure problem.
Not to negotiate a reasonable response to the out-of-hand undocumented immigration.
Not to address the soon-to-be-a-giant-crisis expiring Federal EUC (emergency enemployment compensation) affecting at least 1.2 million families starting December 1st.
Not to take an adult and fiscally sound audit of Defense programs and funding, in an era when the US (all by itself) spends more than all the rest of the world combined. Every year.
Not to fully fund Medicare Part D and the ongoing Wars - or stop them and relieve the budget from those money pits.
Not to address the ills of the nation, as is their sworn duty.
For other officials, including members of Congress, it specifies they "shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation to support this constitution." At the start of each new U.S. Congress, in January of every odd-numbered year, those newly elected or re-elected Congressmen - the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate - must recite an oath:
I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
"I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."
Really?
Jim DeMint, July-17-2009, Politico.com:
"I can almost guarantee you this thing won't pass before August, and if we can hold it back until we go home for a month's break in August," members of Congress will hear from "outraged" constituents, South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint said on the call, which was organized by the group Conservatives for Patients Rights.
"Senators and Congressmen will come back in September afraid to vote against the American people," DeMint predicted, adding that "this health care issue Is D-Day for freedom in America."
"If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him," he said.
That was July 2009, after you had been in office only six months.
The Republican Party has never shown an ounce of willingness to work with you or the Democratic Majority on anything.
Sen. Bunning held up re-authorization of Federal EUC for almost two months, leaving millions of American families without any source of income, for what? To sooth his bruised ego? He deprived millions of the Unemployment benefits that paid their mortgage and utility bills and bought food for their families.
Because the Republicans just couldn't allow that $30 billion to be borrowed. It's perfectly fine, for the expected $3 Trillion that extending the Bush Tax Cuts another 10 years will cost - but not EUC benefits for Americans without a job or the prospect of any job, with 5 or more people still for every available job.
President Obama - I'm begging you. Get your head out of the D.C. cloud that has obscured your view for the past two years.
Stopping trying to be the Great Mediator.
You can't make peace when one Party is not listening, doesn't care and is willing to risk the fiscal and social health of the nation to get what they want: to see the last of President Barack Obama.
You want to have another term?
You want to be remembered as a Great President?
Because I think you want both of them. I also think that it's still possible to achieve both of them.
But to do so, you must be a realist and not a dreamer on the issue of bi-partisanship.
Until the Republican Party is no long populated by the intransigent and those ill-suited to public service how can you continue to act as though they are not?
For the good of your Administration.
For the good of The People.
For the good of the Nation.
Please, Mr.President, stop fooling yourself and trying to convince the rest of us that a congenial comity still exists in our Body Politic.
Put on a stiff upper lip and rally your troops in Congress and set a path for progress.
If the Republicans obstruct and refuse you - then so be it. But at least you will have tried, and in the doing will show the Electorate whom is to blame for failures going forward.
I very much fear that our country cannot afford, fiscally or socially, another decade of Republicanism and it's attendent money pits and moral failings.
It falls on you, Sir, to prevent such a result - and I believe that you will not fail us in this.
If only you are willing and able to put away your hope of truely being the President who bridged the divide between Left and Right.
Because over half of them do not see you as their President, and there is obviously nothing which you can do to change that, after two years of trying.