In this op ed for tomorrow's New York Times the columnist decides to build upon the President's recent self references, which he notes in case the readers missed them:
During a walk a few weeks ago from the White House to the Interior Department, the president proclaimed, “The bear is loose.”
At a Minneapolis town hall last week, Obama said: “With Secret Service, I always tease them, I’m like a caged bear and sometimes I break loose.”
That, however, is the lighter side of things, the side in which the grizzly is merely grumpy because he’s feeling a bit stir-crazy.
He is sure that the President is
aware that great presidencies require the cooperation of Congress, and on that measure, his presidency has been clipped. This is not simply about a president, but also about our progress as a nation. Congress can’t simply sit out a presidency and have the country sustain itself.
Of course on all the issues about which the nation truly cares - employment, infrastructure, comprehensive immigration reform, gun control, etc. -
all efforts are thwarted by a Congress committed to starving this president of any semblance of progress, committed to the erasure of his inhabitance of the office, as best it can be achieved.
Let me stop for a moment and offer a few observations of my own, immediately below the fold, before returning to Blow.
First, it is now apparent that despite the pushback in some contested primaries (eg: Mississippi Senate) the Republican party is now held in thrall by its Tea Party wing many of whose adherents do not believe in most government functions. Then there are the supposed "Libertarians" funded by the Koch Brothers who only want a government they can privatize and/or require to do their bidding, up to and including giving corporations rights that trump those of human persons in the eyes of some judicial figures who not only misread the original intent of the Constitution and its creators but who are also willfully blind to the human cost of what they are doing and the seeds of the destruction of that for which they distort that they are in the process of sowing.
Blow notes the recent drop in approval of Obama's handling of Foreign Policy, and the idea that by some polling he is now considered the worst president since World War II, worse even than the 2nd Bush or Nixon.
Except of course Obama still has an overall approval rating roughly five-six times that of Congress, which is now as low as 7% in some polling.
Blow rightly notes the difficulties the President faces between Republican obstructionism on domestic policy and the strong distaste of the American public for further involvement in foreign military engagements.
Like any 2nd term President, clearly Obama has concerns about his legacy, and perhaps, as Blow notes, regrets for what might have been achieved for the country if only the Republicans had not been so obstructionist.
Blow says the President "appears legitimately angry." He thinks he is daring the House Republicans to follow through on their threat to sue him. In his penultimate paragraph he quotes the words to that effect:
“Middle-class families can’t wait for Republicans in Congress to do stuff. So sue me.”
Which given the bear references to which Blow refers at the beginning of his column, and with which I began this post, sets up Blow's final words:
The bear may be trapped, but he’s not browbeaten. He’s growling.
Of course, given the Bear as a symbol of Russia and thus also of the old USSR, I wonder how long it will be before some on the "Right" attack the President for referring to himself as a bear? Is it only okay if done by a half-term (some might say half-wit) former governor of Alaska who called herself a female grizzly?
Oh, and one more thing - I think the President has gone beyond growling. Each time he speaks he takes a bite out of the Republican hides. I cannot wait for the teeth of more executive orders and actions.
How about you?