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Health & Fitness

YEAH, RIGHT, IF ONLY THE PRESIDENT HAD PLAYED MORE GOLF WITH JOHN BOEHNER

IT IS FRIDAY, MAY 23 and today marks the beginning of the 2014 Memorial Day weekend.  

It began well enough for me---a good night's sleep, the dogs (#WorthlessHounds) sent to the backyard to serve as an early warning system in the event of a British attack via the Congaree (they are presently laid out in the sunshine, comatose), no phone calls from anyone asking anything of me, no concern about who will take the mound for the Gamecocks tonight in the SEC baseball tournament (per usual, unable to come up with more than two runs and seven hits in two games, they enjoyed an early exit from Hoover), the prospect of sitting on my dock for a couple of hours and beginning a new book that arrived from Amazon yesterday.

But it began to sour a bit when I heard a cable news anchor mention that "a couple of Republican congressmen" were "wondering aloud" if the president might "enhance his chances of getting legislation passed" by spending the weekend playing golf with/sucking up to the GOP/Tea Party leadership in D.C.

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Of course, the two Republicans who made the suggestion were all speaking from their home districts, to which they and most of Congress have fled for the long weekend---because, God knows, they need more time off.

The meme that President Obama hasn't been more successful in his efforts to get significant legislation passed because he hasn't spent more time "schmoozing" with Republican members of Congress needs to go the way of the dinosaur.

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Though it is still a favorite talking point of Republican "investigators/litigators" on the Hill---one can hardly call them "legislators"---and of cable talking heads such as Chuck Todd, Chris Matthews and George Will, it is not now and never has been a credible argument.  Indeed, if I hear Matthews, who is becoming more and more tiresome, mention it one more time, I may have to think about a "Second Amendment remedy."

Why am I so weary of hearing the absurdity that the president could have passed more of his legislative agenda had he played more golf with Boehner and invited a few more Republicans over for drinks and perhaps taken in a movie with Mitch McConnell? Here's why...

FACT:  On the night of the president's first inauguration, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Roger Ailes, George Will (journalistic ethics aside, I guess, though that would be nothing new for George Will) and other key GOP/Tea Party legislators/donors/lobbyists infamously met over dinner in Washington and started mapping the plan for obstructionism that has, nearly six years later, effectively brought economic, educational, social and cultural progress in this country to a stop.

FACT:  With Democrats holding sway in both chambers for parts of the first two years of the president's first term---to be precise, only 167 working legislative days---the "Fighting 111th" became the single most productive Congress since LBJ's "Great Society" era.

Take a moment and take a gander at some of the more well-known accomplishments of the 111th Congress:  The Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009; Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) Reauthorization Act; American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009; Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009; Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009; Credit CARD Act of 2009; Tobacco Control Act; Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act; Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act; Student Aid Act of 2009; Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010; Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Act of 2010; Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; Fair Sentencing Act of 2010; Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization and Job Creation Act of 2010; Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010; James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010; Food Safety Act.

Not bad for 167 working legislative days.  With the opposing party forced to cooperate/negotiate because it lacked, for those 167 days, the numbers to obstruct, the president and the Congress were able to actually move the nation forward as it tried to recover from the decimating recession brought on by the economic, military and societal disasters of the Bush administration.

But the economic and social recovery/progress begun in the 111th Congress was to be famously short-lived.

FACT:  When, in the 2010 mid-terms, the GOP/Tea Party was able to establish a majority in the House of Representatives---now known as the "Republican Clown Show"---and a cloture-proof minority in the Senate, McConnell and Boehner were able to begin implementing their obstruction plan.  And, if their intent was to prevent the country from moving forward, prevent the president from being able to implement any of his initiatives and overturn some of the most fundamental civic, societal and cultural gains the country had made during the 20th-century, they certainly succeeded.  Their 112th and 113th Congresses are now recognized as being the two worst in all of American history.

That doesn't seem to be the way one would want to be remembered, but McConnell, Boehner and the rest of their Clown Show will be held accountable by history for holding the American people and the American dream that once drove so many of them hostage to the delusional, destructive and racist---be it covert or overt, implicit or explicit, let's stop beating around the bush and call it for what it is!---politics of America's Radical Right.

People have far shorter memories (think George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and their WMD's and "mushroom clouds") than history.  And people are far more forgiving (think George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and their WMD's and "mushroom clouds") than history, which doesn't have a redemptive bone in its body.

NOW, BE SERIOUS, does anyone other than Chuck Todd or Chris Matthews or George Will actually think that spending a little more time on the golf course with John Boehner or having afternoon drinks with Mitch McConnell---as the president put it, "YOU have drinks with Mitch McConnell!"---or sucking up to the lightweight likes of Trey Gowdy would have been enough to persuade them to ignore the Koch Brothers' cash, to overcome their fear of a cannibalistic Tea Party base and to, well, act in the best interests of their country?

If so, I would suggest Thorazine. Lots and lots of it.

 

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