In just a few days in office, President Obama has made it stunningly clear that the infantile, cowardly, deceitful, and recklessly incompetent (almost to the point of pride) Bush/Republican Way of doing things is OVER.
Mary Lyon, On The Left -- World News Trust
Feb. 5, 2009 -- “I screwed up.”
Sounds like a simple, ordinary, and harmless little thing to admit,
unless of course you’re the President of the United States. We haven’t
heard the likes of this in at least eight years. No wonder everybody in
the media is almost literally erupting about it. They can’t believe
their ears. Seems THAT is a little misplaced, too. By about eight years
and a whole lot of Texas Two-Steppin’ around the truth, both
inconvenient and uncomfortable.
In just a few days in office, President Obama has made it stunningly
clear that the infantile, cowardly, deceitful, and recklessly
incompetent (almost to the point of pride) Bush/Republican Way of doing
things is OVER. With those three little words, “I screwed up,” he’s
already provided us a new template of what a REAL president, a REAL
man, a REAL adult, does when something goes wrong on his or her watch.
As one TV commentator put it -- “he manned up.” The last time I got to
thinking about this, I wondered what I myself was going to do now that
the changes had happened. Seems everyone’s grappling with that, now.
We’re just not used to this.
The “loyal opposition” certainly doesn’t know what to do -- they’re even
more in the dark than I am. In a previous column, I ruminated about not
being sure, anymore, how to behave in this new political climate.
President Obama had set a new tone for political ops, one of reaching
out, blissful and productive bipartisanship, open hands versus clenched
fists. The GOP, in seems, only gets part of this -- the part with the
clenched fists.
Obama sure showed ‘em. He extended that open hand alright. Stretched
all the way out to Republican-ville. Met with a generous variety of
groups of them -- pols and pundits alike. Invited them for drinks.
Invited them to watch the Super Bowl with him in the sumptuous comfort
of The White House. Listened with both ears to all their complaints and
“big ideas” about fixing the economy -- their way, of course. Took many
-- TOO many -- of their suggestions. Abandoned many -- TOO many -- of his
own. Gave them several seats at the table and as of this writing, not
one, nor two, but THREE Cabinet posts. Offered them everything short of
moving out of the Oval Office so John McCain could have it. Never mind
that Obama did all this for the LOSERS -- who clearly haven’t recognized
this new status of theirs (nor would they ever consider similar
response if the Democrats had gotten their heads handed to them in the
last election. Never mind that he elevated their same old, stale, unworkable, short-sighted,
cheap-skate, politics of selfishness to a seriously undeserved parity.
They LOST. Because their ideas and policies suck, and as a nation we’ve
had at least eight years of laboratory time to see that assertion
conclusively proven.
They took President Obama’s open hand and promptly spit in it.
They’ve thus made it undeniable that they deserve little more than the
back of his hand from now on. They’ll probably misinterpret even his “I
screwed up” to be a blanket indictment of anything that comes from the
Oval Office now. Just watch. They’ll make this silk purse into a sow’s
ear in no time at all.
He’s probably not going to give them what they deserve.
But I certainly can.
I tried an experiment the other day, A) to register my opinion about
the stimulus package that the GOP House MINORITY completely rejected in
spite of all the concessions they extracted from President Obama; and
B) to test how many of my toll free Capitol Hill switchboard numbers
still worked (check the end of this column). I wound up reconfirming
three numbers, in three calls to select Republicans. I called two
Congressmen -- one a Californian (Darrell Issa, the pathetic crying
clown behind the recall of then-Governor Gray Davis who’d sunk millions
of his own money into that campaign in hopes of snatching the
governor’s job for himself -- only to have Arnold the Terminator yank it
away from him). The other Congressman -- a media hog (the sanctimonious,
prematurely white-haired self-admitted cherisher of the voice of Rush
Limbaugh, Mike Pence, who has built a thriving side business plastering
his face across every TV and cable screen in the Western World). My third call was to Republican Senator Kit Bond of Missouri,
who’s probably little better than the walking dead since he’s already
announced he’s outta there in 2010, and the Dems appear poised to turn
another red Senate seat blue.
In the interest of acknowledging what’s left of their dignity -- in a
strictly bipartisan fashion, of course -- I will not identify whose
staffers said what, except to point out that the folks in two out of
three of these offices seem to be inhabiting a reality all their own.
In short, they learned NOTHING from the instructions given by an
unmistakable, unspinnable majority of voters last fall. Not an “I
screwed up” in the bunch. When I referred to the “throw the Republican
bums out” message the electorate sent, one representative’s young
adjutant noted that yessirree, they’d gotten that message, alright.
“Yes, the Congressman was reelected…” Never mind how many more of his
friends in the Incredible Shrinking Political Party were sent to the
unemployment line, I reminded him. In another office, the youthful
voice on the other end of the line insisted the hosing of the GOP last
November occurred because they simply weren’t conservative enough. Never mind how the “more of the same” Bush-agenda
sales job that was jammed down our throats was resoundingly rejected.
Funny, this bunch has had eight years to wrap their minds and their
tongues around those three little words that President Obama was honest
enough, and man enough, to utter within days of taking office. With all
the mistakes and blunders and missteps on their watch, none of them got
within a lightyear of admitting they’d screwed up on anything.
Sadly, these poor souls not only don’t get it, they’re evidently
determined not to get it. The earnestness with which they’re falling
all over themselves to force their discredited “ideas” back again onto
an America that said a decisive “NO” to four more years of The
Republican Way of Doing Things is amazing to see. And it’s unsettling.
What do you make of people who insist that the kind of policies and
mindsets and overriding economic and military philosophies that got us
into the present mess should be continued? Just how bad would they
like to see our situation become? And how long will it be before some
of these greedy, arrogant cads come back down to earth, open up a can
of humble, and say: “I screwed up”?
I wound up arguing on the phone with the two different Congressional
office staffers who relentlessly refused to see the forest OR the
trees. I challenged them on all their assertions and wouldn’t back
down. Sometimes we wound up talking over each other. We didn’t get
anywhere, of course. Nor was there any meeting of the minds. So be it.
But capitulating to them wouldn’t have brought any peace, satisfaction,
OR realistic solutions, either -- as we are now seeing. Did all that
conceding points to the GOP yield us any votes in the House of Reps
when that stimulus package came up for an actual vote? How many times
do we have to be trampled on and kicked around by these people before
we learn?
Mr. President, PLEASE. NO MORE CONCESSIONS to the Republicans. Until
AND unless you see them come back to you without their clenched fists
and their myopic already-tried-tested-and-failed “ideas,” and most important of all, WITH their own honest admission -- “I screwed up.”
***
Mary Lyon is a veteran broadcaster and five-time Golden Mike Award winner, who has anchored, reported, and written for the Associated Press Radio Network, NBC Radio "The Source," and many Los Angeles-area stations including KRTH-FM/AM, KLOS-FM, KFWB-AM, and KTLA-TV, and occasional media analyst for ABC Radio News. She began her career as a liberal activist with the Student Coalition for Humphrey/Muskie in 1968, and helped spearhead a regional campaign, The Power 18," to win the right to vote for 18-year-olds. She remains an advocate for liberal causes, responsibility and accountability in media, environmental education and support of the arts for children, and green living. In addition to World News Trust, Mary writes for Huffington Post, OpEdNews, Democrats.us, WeDemocrats.org's "We! The People" webzine. Mary is also a parenting expert, having written and llustrated the book "The Frazzled Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood.