We watched a little bit of the meeting between the President and the Republican House members today. We suppose it could be a start of sorts, but there is much to be done BY PRESIDENT OBAMA before we would accept it as any kind of “meeting of the minds.”
Let’s start with a word fraught with danger: compromise.
In the minds of liberals, compromise almost always means that conservatives move closer to their points of view. The idea of liberals moving toward conservative positions is considered a non-starter, and dead on arrival. This is poppycock pure and simple. It is no compromise at all, and we urge Republicans to tell liberals flat out that there will be no meeting of the minds if this is their definition of compromise.
So, for example, the health care deformation efforts that Nancy “The Off-the-Rails LOCOmotive” Pelosi tried to strong-arm through the House last year involved no compromise that we saw. Indeed, all opponents were cast by her as astroturf and Nazis. If there is any one person who poisoned the well last year, it was the Witch of California (with all due apologies to other witches – if apologies are due). This dingbat of a woman should be nowhere near the legislative process, let alone running it.
Mr. President, if you would have CONSERVATIVES talking civilly with you; looking for ways to compromise on legislation that for whatever reason you consider important, we urge you start calling on your own supporters to tone down the rhetoric. It would go a long way if you said something like this in your next speech to the American public.
“As you know, I have wanted to change the tone in Washington. I inherited very intense partisanship from the last admini — wait – no, I’m not going to go there again. This is on my watch now. OK – let me start over. I want – right now – I want to change the tone in Washington. I can’t control anyone else, so I will begin with myself. I will no longer demonize the prior administration which I acknowledge had to deal with some very tough challenges – challenges that I didn’t realize were as difficult as they were until I took office. So let me begin by apologizing to George W. Bush and his administration. You were patriots, doing the best you could. And while I disagree with some of the things you did, I will no longer second guess you, just as I would not appreciate the next administration second guessing me.
“But let me go beyond this. I cannot control anyone but myself. But I can call on everyone who supports me to start right now – today – to tone it down. Stop calling Republicans and Conservatives astro-turf or Nazis. They are neither. They are sincere; we happen to believe they are wrong. It is our job to persuade them to our point of view if we can, and to be civil regardless. If we can lead by example, maybe the Republicans and conservatives will respond in kind. God knows that there are many conservatives out there who have said as much. Maybe we can begin setting a new tone by leading by example. So, Speaker Pelosi, Vice President Biden and Senator Reid, please do what you can to tone down your language and the language of those who work for you. We are no longer at war with FoxNews. We are no longer at war with Corporate America’s boardrooms. You are all Americans, same as me, and I will no longer demonize you. I call on those who support me now to do likewise. Think Gandhi and Martin Luther King, who practiced civility under intense provocations. Can we do less? I call on our side of the debate to live more nobly and by our examples, perhaps the Republicans and conservatives will see that we are sincere in our desire to change things for the better.”
Will you do this, Mr. President?
- Off-the-cliff.com
An open letter to President Obama…
Mr. President,
We watched you give yet another speech tonight. Of course, this time, it was completely appropriate as it was the State of the Union speech. We haven’t had time to really examine it (transcripts and recordings), but we have some initial impressions.
#1 – You talk a good game; but it only works if people don’t remember 2009. We, at O-t-c, do remember 2009, and we’re hanged if we’re going to let anyone else forget.
#2 – Your calls for bipartisanship ring hollower than a termite infested tree stump. Where were your calls for bipartisanship in 2009? Where was your effort to tell Nancy Pelosi and her demons to tone down the incivility and to bring Republicans and Independents to the table? We watched all year long for such efforts, Mr. President. They never ever happened.
#3 – For the first time in memory, you actually praised America and almost – almost – acknowledged our exceptionalism. Of course, you didn’t use that word. Why is that, Mr. President?
#4 – You said that you deserved some of the setbacks you received. But you didn’t itemize any of them? What setbacks did you deserve, Mr. President. We can think of many, but it would be good to hear it from you directly. What don’t you blame on the previous administration – besides your inability to articulate with sufficient clarity and persuasiveness how abominations like Pelosi’s and Reid’s health care atrocities would actually be good for us.
#5 – The surprise of the night: you actually went against your base and called for opening up nuclear power plants. A few of us had our jaws drop on that one. Ditto with the idea of opening up Federal lands for oil drilling. Of course, talk is cheap. We’ll be watching to see if you deliver.
#6 – Your spending freeze seems like a fraud to us. You said you’ll freeze spending in 2011. That gives you all of 2010 to hike the spending beyond any conceivable limit and then freeze it there.
#7 – During 2009 you said that there were hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud and waste to be removed from the health care system. Well – how about going after it, Mr. President. Show us the money! Why do we have to wait for health care deformity before you start enforcing the laws against fraud and doing the work of a good manager and reigning in the wasteful spending?
#8 – There were a few self-deprecating moments in the speech. You almost seemed human. We recommend you do more of that.
#9 – There’s a difference between going after something that’s right and dictating what that something should be. It is your fault that We the People don’t trust the health care deformation efforts. Your fault. You tried to ram it through – without giving anyone time to see what was in it – more than a thousand pages – before the August recess. Remember that? How was that transparent, Mr. President? On what basis were we supposed to trust the process, or you, or Pelosi – especially with you marginalizing and demonizing everyone who opposed you.
You don’t get off the hook, Mr. President, just because you give a mildly friendly speech. You have a lot of work to rebuild trust with we Independents. And if you want any of your legislative agenda to go through, without losing your party in November, you’d better start communicating straight with us and taking what we want into account. (Same for the Republicans.) We are tired of our choices being Tweedledee and Tweedledum. We want pragmatists who share our values. If you can’t manage that, Mr. President, then we recommend that you “get out of the way,” to coin a phrase.
Addendum: One more thought: We think that Nancy Pelosi, again, showed why we so despise her. As narcissistic as the President is, and we believe that he is exactly the person Carlie Simon was singing about with her song, “Your so vain, you probably think this song is about you…” But Pelosi? She makes Obama look like the most comfortable in his own skin; the least self-aggrandizing person in the world. There she was, preening every time the President said that the House had passed a bill. We felt like we were watching a toddler being told that she did a good job using the toilet. “What a good girl you are!” Made us very queasy. Madam Speaker – you really need to get over yourself. You aren’t anything special other than to fellow stupids. Oh – and Biden – the guy was nodding his head more than the bobble-headed versions of himself. It was like his neck was on a loose spring. Come on – you can’t be agreeing with every single word the President says in realtime. You at least should wait till he completes a thought, shouldn’t you? Geez.
- Off-the-cliff.com
We watched with mixed emotions, your speech (yet another speech!) at your town hall meeting last week. We saw you strident, perhaps angry. We saw you defiant. What we didn’t see was that you had learned anything from We the People.
The mixed emotions come because it kind of tugged at us when you said (paraphrasing) that some of the attacks on you stung. That’s perhaps the most human thing we’ve heard you say – ever. It’s using English in a way that Americans around the country understand and get. It’s not professorial. It’s not highbrow, looking over the glasses to talk down to us. It’s just connecting man to man or man to woman.
However, in the next moment, we remembered.
We remembered when you tried to walk it back from your condemnation of the Cambridge Police Department, when you said that you had “miscalibrated” your language. Who talks like that?
But more – we remember that you did condemn the Cambridge Police Department after saying that you didn’t have all the facts. Fast forward to when you tried to stump for Martha Coakley, and you said that you didn’t really know Scott Brown’s record as you then tried to condemn it.
You are very fast to demonize fellow Americans, Mr. President. We can’t think of a single time that George W. Bush did that, despite provocation that makes your hot seat look like an air conditioned cockpit. You are very quick to lash out at us, Mr. President – at anyone who stands in your way. This is why we call you a bully. And you do it with people who are ill equipped to fight back against the force of the Federal Government in general and the Office of the President in particular. This is why we call you a coward.
We strongly suggest that if you want to turn things around on your watch, Mr. President, that you stop with the demonization; stop with the villainizing of entire swaths of Americans. Show the same kind of respect and courtesy that you and your Wicked Witch of the West demand every so often from the rest of us. Start treating people who disagree with you with respect, Mr. President, and just maybe you’ll find it reciprocated.
If you can’t manage that, we happily imagine you feeling irritated, annoyed, ticked off, etc. We wish for you the same consternation that you cause us. We would rather that we could respect an American President, but as in all things, respect is something earned, and you, Sir, have not earned it; not yet; though you still can.
- Off-the-cliff.com
This is an open letter to Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State.
Back in 1998, you gave an interview during which you said this: But I do think we always have to keep competing interests in balance. I’m a big pro-balance person. That’s why I love the founders — checks and balances; accountable power. Anytime an individual or an institution or an invention leaps so far out ahead of that balance and throws a system, whatever it might be — political, economic, technological –out of balance, you’ve got a problem, because then it can lead to the oppression people’s rights, it can lead to the manipulation of information, it can lead to all kinds of bad outcomes which we have seen historically. So we’re going to have to deal with that.
Do you remember?
We ask because it sure looks like in its first year, the Obama Administration failed to pay heed to these words.
Where were the checks and balances that the Obama Administration payed attention to? The Administration overreached on health care reform, turning it into a truly deformed monstrosity. The Administration overreached when it told secured investors at GM and Chrysler to go to the back of the bus because the Administration had other plans for the money. Where was the balance, Mrs. Clinton?
Did you mean it? If you meant what you said more than 10 years ago, have you changed? Do you still believe it? And if you do, do you have the President’s ear, Mrs. Clinton?
We ask because this President seems to be very full of himself, even now, after the drubbing he got in Virginia, South Carolina and most of all, in Massachusetts. When he was talking with Stephanopolis a couple days ago, he said this: We were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values.
Are you kidding us, Mr. President? And Mrs. Clinton, are you unable to talk any sense into this man? And if not, would it not be honorable (and good for your career) to resign?
The President – Mr. Narcissist in Chief – is going to tell us what our core values are? He – and you, Mrs. Clinton – don’t have to look far to discover what our core values are. We told you in Massachusetts. We don’t need another professorial lecture by the Messiah. We don’t want this pretender to Zeus’ throne dictating from on high what our core values are, and we don’t want him trying to change our core values. We want him to execute on our core values:
- Liberty
- Free Enterprise
- Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
- No overreaching
- Knowing who’s paying your salaries
- No blatant sweetheart deals for unions, lawyers (like lawyers can’t take care of themselves), and others at the expense of We the People
Don’t you get it, Mrs. Clinton, and if you do, don’t you remember what you told reporters those many years ago? Don’t you remember? Did you mean it? What are you going to do about it? Can’t you talk some sense into this bumblebrain before he wrecks the country over the next three years? After all, if you’re going to be President one day, don’t you want to have a real country to govern – or are you, also, enamored with Venezuela as a model for this country?
- Off-the-cliff.com
Mr. President,
Today you destroyed billions of dollars in holdings with your efforts to demonize bankers and Wall Street investors – yet again. The DOW was down more than 200 points – the second day in a row – after the second day in a row that you started with your meddling again.
Now that you can no longer blast the insurance companies and Big Phram because you got your butt kicked in Massachusetts, you’re looking for a new boogie man, and you’ve settled on the investor class again.
Are you really that evil or that stupid, Mr. President? Have you learned nothing from your whoopin’ in Massachusetts? We the People are on to you. We see through your lunatic, narcissistic ideas, and we’re sick of them.
You said you were against torture. So why are you torturing us?
Of course, if you keep it going, We the People will give you many more Republicans and some Independents to work with come November. We only wish that it was now – right now – the day of the November 2010 election.
- Off-the-cliff.com