Much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments has been made about the admittedly underwhelming debt ceiling bill. There was something wrong with it for everyone, and the fact that the tea party forced the matter seemed to make it all the worse.
With the tea party faction behaving, as Joe Biden correctly described, as terrorists, of course there is a predictable chorus from the usual suspects that Obama was, once again, “caving.”
However, the whole show reminded me not so much of a hostage negotiation as the famous parable involving Solomon.
Solomon, he of a multitude of wives and concubines, was understandably adept at resolving conflict. When two women showed up claiming the same infant as their own child, his solution was to cut the baby in half. One mother agreed to the deal, the other gave up her claim to the infant to save him. Solomon had his proof – the mother who would give up the child was the one who truly loved him.
In the debt debacle, we had the same situation. President Obama was willing to sacrifice to save his country, and the Tea Party was willing to cut the nation in half to prove a point. It would be nice, wouldn’t it, if the President could always be Solomon, handing out rough justice to the Teabaggers who are hellbent on destroying American institutions – but in the system of government that we have, the legislative and executive branches are equal.
We, the American people, are Solomon, charged with naming the worthy parent of the relatively helpless infant that is our Republic. And we can bitch and moan about how President Obama should have destroyed his country in order to save it, through drawing false comparisons and waxing poetic about political war, or we can recognize true patriotism, love of the country, when we see it and give thanks that the Teabaggers have been, are, and will continue to be a noisy and loathsome minority. We can either recognize our role as the ultimate adjudicators, or we can complain about a personal rejection that only exists in our minds.
When they ask for volunteers to register voters, when they ask for someone to knock on doors, when they ask for support to get the message out there, will you work for justice? When the media distorts the narrative, giving credit where it is not due, will you call them out? Or will you stay at home, stay quiet, and abdicate your duty?
Will you be Solomon?